Working in charity is a rewarding but demanding job. From doing on-the-ground work to creating new fundraising schemes, it requires a great deal of time and effort to meet your important goals.
Consequently, thinking outside the box is essential. Read on to discover why it’s so important, plus a few ways you can think outside the box in charity in 2020.
Why should you think outside the box in charity?
Charities face a lot of new and changing situations
Charities are often presented with distinct, unique issues that are specific to their charitable niche. Whether it’s the logistics of managing aids overseas or a shortfall in donors, charities face any number of unique and varied problems.
Due to the changing nature of the world, these problems often morph into new, more testing issues.
Take climate change, for example. As global warming becomes more and more of a pressing issue, charities working to feed the hungry in Third World countries find themselves with a whole plethora of new issues to deal with.
Naturally, this requires a creative approach to deal with it.
A creative approach is required to source new donors
Willing donors are crucial for helping charities succeed.
The general public receives countless requests for donations and support from charities all the time. Consequently, they have become numb to them, and it requires a certain creative flair with which to reach them.
Thinking outside the box helps teams find new ways of engaging with prospective donors on a deeper, more intimate level. It helps them connect with individuals on an emotional level in order to encourage them to act, whether that’s by making a donation or by something else.
It helps you make the most of small budgets
Most big charities have big budgets with which they can execute engaging marketing campaigns. As well as marketing, their budgets also let them employ more skilled individuals and conduct a greater scope of work as a charity.
But for smaller charities, the luxury of a big budget isn’t there. Instead, they have to get creative with the little money they have to meet their charity’s needs and keep donations going.
This means thinking outside the box and coming up with new and effective ways of meeting their charity’s myriad goals. As every cash-strapped startup will attest, a fresh, creative approach to budgets helps you get the most from them, and charities are no different. Food charities like Charity Right is just one of the many options you can go down with charity organizations, why not look to provide regular, nutritious meals so people no longer struggle every day to feed themselves or their families?
How to think outside the box: tips & strategies
Leverage social media beyond the basics
Social media is a ubiquitous part of our lives, and many charities already use it as part of their overall marketing strategy.
But beyond simple paid ads or organic campaigns, charities should also take advantage of the myriad creative features available to them on social.
For instance, charities might take advantage of the targeted audience segmentation open to them on social already. These let you target ads at specific groups of people who are more likely to donate or engage with a charity ad. This could allow animal charities to target dog lovers or pro-life organizations to market to religious people or new mothers. Targeting marketing is also a great way to save on ad spend.
But these should be taken further too. Take sequential ads, for example. These let you present ads in a particular order to an audience. They also offer the perfect opportunity to create emotionally-driven ad narratives that compel your audience to take a desired action.
Stories too are also a great way to tap into your target donor audience. A sequential Story campaign is a great way to build on audience emotions. Use an emotionally-needling hook and slowly persuade your target donor to make a donation to your charity.
In short, think like a brand. Take inspiration from the dynamic, consumer-driven social marketing from big commercial brands and think about how it can be leveraged to help you meet your charity’s goals.
Use pop-up shops as an opportunity
I mentioned earlier that people are numb to charity marketing. They have seen so much of it that they ignore the ads or mail they see asking for donations. But one way to overcome this is to simply get in front of your target audience face-to-face, and pop-up shops are the way to achieve that.
Pop-up shops are a great way to get under your audience’s skin for insights. They are easy to create too — all you need is a POS hub and you can quickly and easily collect customer data there and then.
At your next charity event, create a pop-up store and sell branded merchandise or donated experiences, and so on. What you’re selling isn’t important (although it does add a nice revenue stream to your charity) — it’s about speaking to your customers, sourcing their details to add to mailing lists, and nurturing a deeper, more personal connections as a result.
Get everyone involved with hands-on charity work
One of the best ways to think outside the box in charity is to adopt a hands-on approach and actually get involved in your cause on the front line.
Naturally, you will have staff whose role it is to deliver on-the-ground support to your charity’s cause. But when everyone in an organization gets involved — from admin staff to CEOs — it helps create a sense of unity and zeal that benefits the entire charity.
Getting hands-on with your charity offers an array of benefits. It shows prospective donors that everyone in your charity is committed to your cause, provides excellent marketing opportunities, and so on.
But beyond this, it also helps everyone understand at a grassroots level how your charity is helping and what it can do better going forward.
The tips and ideas above are just a few points to help get you started. Every charity has different goals, and this requires a different approach for each. Tale inspiration from the above and bring some outside-the-box thinking to your charity role in 2020.
