Sponsoring hope - sounds pretty good, eh?

A major campaign that has been launched recently is The British Heart Foundation's Mending Broken Hearts campaign. What I like about this campaign is that is lets us in on a secret - that zebrafish can heal their own hearts - and speaks to us in open way. It made me feel that there could be real hope in regenerative medicine and that by supporting the campaign I would really become part of something quite monumental. I must admit at this stage that I am (or rather was) a lapsed regular giver to BHF and they have helped a member of my family in the past. This appeal made me revisit their work and I am now, once again, a regular donor having signed up to the "sponsor hope" aspect of the appeal. 

I do, however, have a couple of thoughts on the campaign. When I signed up I was told that there are several benefits to becoming a sponsor but I think it would be good to allow people to opt out of some of these to allow for a more personalised approach. Whilst I will proudly wear a campaign pin which has been designed by Sir Peter Blake, I have no interest whatsoever in watching a series of DVDs or having a certificate. I would also like all communication to be by email, and whilst I sent a message via the website to say so it would have been nice to be given the choice. I don't know about other age groups but as a Gen Y-er I like to have control over how I engage with things, I like to feel it's on my terms and I would have appreciated a little more choice.

BHF do have a very active twitter and facebook presence which is run well but they don't so far seem to be doing anything outside of their regular commentary and utilising social media in a different way. In fact the methods which have been chosen for the campaign feel quite traditional (TV, charity record etc). The aim of the campaign is to raise £50 million over 10 years so it will be certainly interesting to see how it grows and develops as it's audience grows and shifts. I hope they find ways to get other Gen Y-ers on board and take us with them because we might not be the biggest donors now but in 10 years time we might be the ones you really need... 

I'm excited about 2011!

So, January is over... I always think it's a bit like the "Monday of the year" so I'm not too sad to see it go, although it does seem to have happened rather quickly!

There are plenty of things to cause concern for the sector in 2011, with the economy and the coalition government's attempts to recover it being pretty high on the list. I have been lucky/unlucky (delete as desired) to hear both Nick Hurd and David Cameron speak on the issue of "Big Society" and whilst I obviously support the idea of strengthening communities and building social engagement I have not heard anything that leads me to believe that they know how this will happen and whether they intend to have any part in it doing so! There are a great many people out there doing brilliant things in their community but how are they going to get even more people involved instead of spending tax-payers money on teaching grandmothers to suck eggs? (figuratively speaking of course)

The reason why I am excited about 2011 despite the doom and gloom is there are some great things happening already this year and that shows the resilience and passion of the third sector. Action Aid's "What a Feeling" Campaign for instance is very interesting; the campaign focuses on what supporters get out of being involved in Action Aid's work rather than the services it delivers - the campaign itself has been very well orchestrated with multi-channel advertising and PR stunts. We all try to indicate what our donors and volunteers can get out of being involved with our causes but I think it is pretty brave for Action Aid to focus their whole campaign on this. Being a massive fan of Action Aid's "Bollocks to Poverty" youth channel and a previous volunteer with them I hope that their campaign achieves their organisational aims rather than just being a boost to the sector as a whole.

In fact, it's probably the kind of campaign that should be run to explain to us all what "Big Society" is all about....