A ripple of change that lasts a lifetime.
Each year, Save the Children sends an Integrated Video Campaign to midlevel and special gift donors. In the most recent campaign, we tied the creative to their 100-year anniversary theme, “Change that lasts a lifetime.” Sage developed the 7-minute video content plus a 1-minute trailer for the campaign.
We also tested a web key that connects to a URL to watch the video, rather than inserting an actual DVD disc. The web key won on a P & L basis.
Making matching gift campaigns more impactful.
Save the Children is a leading international nonprofit organization that promotes children’s rights, provides relief and helps support children in developing countries. A core part of their mission is to create lasting change. This brochure uses a reveal fold to reinforce the idea that your donation will do more than help children survive — it will help them thrive. It was originally created for their 2015 Matching Gift Campaign, which lifted response by more than 30%.
Raising more funds through storytelling.
When Save the Children was unsuccessful at beating their strongest fundraising campaign to acquire new donors, they turned to Sage. We featured compelling photos and stories of children on colorful cards that also included bookmarks, a relatively inexpensive freemium compared with their current control. The result? A 22% lift in response.
Engaging donors with augmented reality.
When donors opened their Save the Children app and hovered their smartphones over the image of Eva, they were rewarded with a special video and message from this sweet child. The video had twice as many views in just a few days as it had in months. And more donors engaged with the app during this one campaign than in the entire 6-month period prior to the campaign.
Engaging donors with a polling email.
In addition to creating the annual Save the Children calendar, Sage also created an email asking donors to choose a photo for the next calendar. Donors voted on the photo they preferred, and the winning image was featured in the calendar the following year. Versioned for calendar and non-calendar recipients, the poll results also provided valuable information about the types of photos donors were most drawn to.
This email so successfully engaged donors that it became an integral part of the calendar campaign in subsequent years.
Helping to save children every day.
By testing a wide variety of innovative concepts across marketing channels with a variety of donors, we’ve been able to help grow Save the Children’s donor base, increase giving and make a difference for vulnerable children in the world.
Each August, Save the Children sends select donors a calendar featuring the beautiful faces of girls and boys as a thank-you gift. In 2018, the calendar was extended to 15 months, so donors could start using it sooner. In the 2019 test package, donors were asked to vote for an image for the 2020 calendar. A no-ask voting email was created as well, to create more donor engagement.
Put a smile on your face.
Save the Children uses a “bounce-back” strategy to engage monthly donors and increase the personal connection they feel with their sponsored child, while also encouraging them to make an additional one-time gift to help other children in need. Since recipients are already child sponsors, getting them to include an additional donation was challenging. To engage the donors, we included 3 animal masks that they could sign and return to be forwarded to their sponsored child.
Below: Photo of children in Malawi with masks. ©2016 Save the Children
Save the Children Annual Sponsorship Update.
Once a year, Save the Children sends an informative update to its child sponsors. This no-ask package includes a card with the child’s picture and current information; an update from the country office; a brochure highlighting sponsorship work in the sponsored child’s country and a letter-writing kit for the sponsor to use to write to their sponsored child.
This no-ask mailing helps keep sponsors engaged and feeling good about the work they help make possible.
Reply by midnight to make 10X the impact.
Email is an ideal channel for creating urgency. And urgency matters when it comes to saving children’s lives. For this email, Sage proposed a live countdown timer to dial up the urgency messaging. The email arrived in donors’ inboxes the last day of the match campaign. While the timer was actually related to time left to donate, the headline reinforced the sense of urgency for the cause.