It's countdown to Christmas ....
Christmas hampers are being packed and every shop stacked with gifts. Charity Christmas cards are selling fast, and everyone is in a festive and giving mood. One charity which enjoys considerable support at Christmas is Farleigh Hospice which has already been preparing for its Light Up A Life campaign since the autumn
Light Up a Life is the Hospice movement's way of remembering loved ones at Christmas by asking supporters to dedicate a Christmas tree light to them. Many of those being remembered will have been cared for by local adult and children's hospices throughout the UK.
Local hospices invite people to make a donation that supports their vital work, while dedicating a light in celebration of their friends or relatives. Local events and the lighting of trees are held in hospices, churches, cathedrals, by local companies, schools and even at train stations, shopping and garden centres. A book of remembrance is usually produced and bereavement counsellors on-hand to give support.
Farleigh Hospice, at Chelmsford in Essex, is just one such charity that has taken up the idea of offering its supporters the opportunity to sponsor a light. "We launched our Light Up A Life appeal 11 years ago and it's gone from strength to strength," said Farleigh Hospice's Head of Fundraising & PR, Gary Hawkes. "The annual campaign is one of our biggest annual fundraising initiative. Yes, it brings in essential funds for the Hospice, but as important is the satisfaction it brings the families of our patients at this festive time of year".
This year's Light Up A Life is being supported by Help the Hospices. Liz George, National Fundraising Support Manager at the organisation says "We aim to support hospices in maximising their fundraising capacity, often by promoting best practices and to sharing success stories around the various events. With over 190 local hospices like Farleigh running Light up a Life events, we have launched a new website and advertising campaign for the first time this year. By visiting http://www.lightupalife.org/ the public will be able to find details of their nearest Light up a Life events and can also light a virtual candle in memory of a loved one".
The idea for the national campaign, which also includes advertising in the national press and online, came from a meeting of local hospice fundraisers and was then developed by Help the Hospices.
But managing the campaigns and the resulting fundraising is no mean feat. Not only is there a need to run the campaign itself with contacts database and its mailings lists etc, but there is the management of the responses, the pledges and al the administration of the actual events at Christmas. Finally there is the financial management of all the donations, gift aid, and then the analysis of the campaign.
According to Gary Hawkes, Head of Fundraising at Farleigh Hospice, it was worth taking this seriously to maximise the potential. "As one of the major campaigns bringing in funds, we realised that we needed a ‘supporter-centric' database that would enable us to build relationships with our supporters, and to manage their pledges in a sympathetic and appropriate way. " We had already upgraded our contacts database to ProgressCRM, but wanted to have even smarter functionality to do Light up a Life justice."
Gary worked with Fisk Brett, the developers of the database, to configure a special ‘module' for the Light up a Life campaign. "Running the complex campaign is now simple" explains Gary. "It needed to be, to provide the most effective return on our investment."
So how is it run? A mailing sent by the hospice in early October is made up of a warm selection list from both the main contact and supporter database, supplemented by a cold list from a mailing house. Additional leaflets, printed with their own unique source code, are also distributed around churches and other local outlets.
Donations from the campaigns need to be processed with a variety of payment methods. In addition, each donation contains the request to hold one or more names for a 'light' on a Christmas tree and an entry into a book of remembrance.
Requests to put defined names on specific trees or for certain services also come in with the donation and need to be recorded. An acknowledgement letter is sent back to the donor with the memoriam names confirmed within a special card.
Then, in late November and through December, annual 'lighting up' services are held throughout the area.
Gary explained the simplicity of the solution "The database's 'Light up a Life' batch entry module developed for us captures all the necessary information including details of the donors, checking against our existing contact list, and with the ability to quickly create new contacts and Gift Aid declarations.
It also allocates a ‘batch number' date, source code such as existing supporter, or which new list or which leaflet used. We enter amount, transaction type (in-memoriam being default), and payment method with the ability to create a payment plan if we get a standing order."
The module also records the Charity type, and the details required for the services' Cards and their In-memoriam names. These can be multiple names per donation which will be assigned to a card which can include up to five names chosen from a picklist of previous names used by the donor.
"The batch processing and printing of the letters and cards is very simple, as is the management of standing orders, Gift Aid declarations and other financial transactions," said Gary Hawkes. "Although written for Farleigh Hospice, the software module can be used by any hospice using the Progress database"
As the countdown to Christmas is now in days, and with this year's campaign really doing well thanks to the forward planning, Farleigh Hospice will soon be looking ahead to Christmas 2008.
