Though it’s just happened, the story below is about to become a piece of fundraising history, for it records a time just two weeks ago when something really significant happened.
For the moment at least Indra Sinha – in SOFII’s view the world’s greatest living fundraising copywriter – is still writing great ads and still pushing the boundaries of what can and should be said in the interests of truth and justice, to raise money for one of the world’s great causes, to help right one of the world’s great wrongs.
What follows below is Indra’s email to SOFII’s Ken Burnett following frantic phone calls on the day, to explain what really happened to prevent him from being with us on 6 June But first, read here the whole page press ad that caused the problems. Then, below, read what this ad achieved.
Download a PDF version of the ad here.
SOFII asks, is there any cause, anywhere, getting such a return from cold donor acquisition? Particularly, from a method and media so long since assumed to have had their day?
If so, please tell us here so we can share it with SOFII readers everywhere.
And if you are intrigued by Indra’s challenge to spot the paragraph that inspired the poet and/or to give your views as to why this ad worked so well, please post a comment (with your name please) below or email it to SOFII here. Thank you.
SOFII as you know is dedicated to encouraging fundraising creativity and to covering the most interesting challenges that fundraisers face. So we feel we’ll be doing everyone a favour by effecting an introduction to any charity who thinks they might have a challenging project worth putting to the man himself. Though we’re sure he’s neither cheap nor undemanding, we’re tempted now to say, ‘do yourself and the world a favour and brief Indra to write your next ad’.
But what you do with this is entirely up to you.
If you have a project you wish us to pass to Indra Sinha, send it to SOFII here.
Don’t go near the water: 25 years after the world’s worst ever man-made disaster, B’EauPal shows that effective political campaigning takes ’bottle’ (a commonly used London term for courageous risk-taking). This is a classic opportunistic protest in a good cause.
Created in less than two hours, this ad went on to raise more than 20 times its total costs in just a few days, to become a classic example of disaster appeal advertising. More than £420,000 was raised and most of it directly attributable to the press advertisements.
Newly added to SOFII’s archive of brilliant Amnesty ads from yesteryear is this shocking full page from the mid 1990s. Though distressing, it’s well worth reading and studying.