Case study 2: Fundraising emails for a children's hospice
What was the challenge? 💡
As a charity copywriter with a specialism in emails, I was referred for an opportunity to develop email content for Haven House Children's Hospice's new fundraising challenge.
Their hospice team has a busy, small communications and fundraising team without both the resources and expertise to deliver Miles for Smiles in-house. This was why I was chosen for the work - having worked on a similar successful campaign for another charity.
The team needed several emails planned, written, built and scheduled in Mailchimp from September 2023 to April 2024 to incentivise sign-ups for the challenge, steward fundraisers, and raise vital money.
What was the process? ✅
The target audience included those who had previously fundraised for the hospice, patients and their families, and those who were less familiar with the hospice. These audiences were sourced from Facebook lead generation paid ads, led by an amazing external social media freelancer.
I created two welcome journeys of two emails each to introduce the campaign and why a fundraiser's involvement makes a difference. I then created several personalised stewardship emails, featuring impactful case studies, fundraising resources, videos, and celebrities taking part to sustain interest.
What was the solution? ✅
We reflected on what messaging had worked well for each audience in the paid ads, previous emails the charity had sent, as well as what other charities were doing to promote their fundraising challenges. I used these learnings to create email copy.
Due to the diverse audiences involved in the campaign, the copy was tailored to their motivation for taking part (not pictured in the text above). This meant that each key audience, such as those taking part to get active for their mental health, received different text than those taking part for other motivations. Supporters with loved ones at the hospice, or who had lost a loved one in the past, received emails that were written in an especially empathetic and compassionate tone.
For all audiences, it was also important to craft emails that clearly demonstrated how participating in the fundraising challenge made a difference for seriously ill children and their families. To do this, we used cost breakdowns (see above example).
What were the results? 📈
Overall, this fundraising challenge raised over £20,000 for Haven House Children’s Hospice with over 300 fundraisers taking part. Emails achieved as high as a 62% open rate and 8% click through rate. Using tailored content for each audience enormously helped to make sure my emails were successful.
Manjeet Pabla, Fundraising Manager at Haven House Children’s Hospice said:
“Laura was responsible for crafting all of our stewardship emails, which consistently achieved open rates well above the charity sector benchmarks”
“Her ability to create impactful and engaging copy has made a tangible difference in our campaigns.”
Images of patients and their families have been removed from the email screengrabs above.
