Posted on: May 18th, 2010 by Reuben Turner

One of the most spectacularly successful fundraising appeals we’ve done this year was also one of the simplest, and truest. It was a shortfall appeal for an international aid charity. They were facing cuts, and a Directors’ meeting was planned where they’d have to withdraw funding from education, HIV, water and food programmes. Not a position anyone wants to be in – because when you’re working in the poorest countries in the world this usually means that people will die who wouldn’t otherwise.

All of this was against the background of a financial crisis and recession, caused by some of the world’s richest people  that was drastically affecting donations aimed at helping some of the poorest.

This was a truth that needed telling, as honestly as possible. We sat down with the Director and asked him how he felt. We captured as much of that sense of indignation and dismay as possible, and set it down in a two-sided letter. No leaflet, no pictures. The letter was mailed to every supporter of the charity we could reach. We gave them the choice to restrict their donation to a specific area of work, or to leave it unrestricted.

The appeal was tasked with raising a quarter of a million pounds, and raised over a million. The Directors’ meeting happened, but it was a much more positive one, resulting in far fewer cuts to the organisation’s work.

The truth is, there are some organisations who would try to capitalise on this, perhaps building a shortfall-style appeal into the annual programme. Not this one – they have a reputation for accountability, transparency and unflinching honesty. Which is, no doubt, why so many of their supporters believed them –and responded.

Sometimes the best story you can tell is the truth. And the further you stray from it, the fewer people will know it when they hear it.