Glam Up & Give - how to create a ten charity consortium inside 5 days
Glam Up & Give is a social fundraising campaign conceived of by Flying Cars partner Anne Race. We developed the idea after observing global trends on social media around how people were filling their time in the coronavirus lockdown period that has affected one-third of the world's population so far.
We recognised that people :
Want to feel connected to others during this period and feel virtually together
Want to contribute to the greater good somehow - hence the popularity in the UK of the Big Night In, the 2.6 challenge and Captain Tom Moore's monster fundraising campaign which has raised nearly £33 million so far
Feel part of their team at work, even if they are working from home
Want to have fun and spread joy
We also recognised that people are looking for reasons to get dressed up and put on their best clothes or most unusual outfits.
So the idea to 'Glam Up & Give' was born. The idea was big, something that everyone would want to get involved with, so we wanted to ensure the charity beneficiaries represented many good causes to raise urgently needed money in a time where many are experiencing very significant financial worries. There is increased demand for their services and very significant funding gaps caused by the cancellation or postponement of fundraising events, closure of retail chains, inability to run dialogue campaigns and losses on investments in reserves due to the collapse of the financial markets around the world amongst numerous other impacts.
The idea behind Glam Up & Give is simple: Glam up, make a heart with your hands, donate, post, and nominate your friends to glam up too. We tested the idea through friends and family - thanks all! The responses were overwhelmingly positive, and people were very keen to take part. We also tested by running a small quantitative survey. Again - responses indicated that 85% of people said they would definitely take part or would maybe take part in Glam Up & Give.
Buoyed by these testing results, we urgently started creating a list of charities on the front line of Covid-19 response. We sent emails, set up a zoom call, pull a deck together to explain the concept, and kept our children just about clean, washed and fed!
Our briefing, where charity partners heard details about Glam Up & Give for the first time, happened at 8 am on Wednesday 29th April. We had a commitment from 8 partners by noon Friday 1st May and two others by 5 pm, creating a consortium of 10 beneficiary charities in just two days. Thanks to the exceptional coordination, communication and persistence of our lead charity contacts.
Participating charities in the UK are:
Asthma UK & The British Lung Foundation
Over the following five days, our prospective partners pulled out all the stops to get everything ready before launch, showing the resilience and commitment we know exists at every charity, struggling for its future and survival right now.
A real example of how agile and cooperative the sector can be.
An enormous thank you to our contacts at our charity partners for making this happen:
Gabi Field, Karen Bolton, Maja Vucicevic, Milly Taylor, Rebekah Ahmed, Rebecca King, Steven Greenberg, Vanessa Longley, Helen Ashcroft, Rufus Cruft for responding with such great agility and cooperation.
And an enormous thanks to all the supporting partners who have worked pro bono to make this happen:
Aruna Safri-Singh - Narrative Design
Francis Burns, Puzzle London
Leon Bentham, IT consultant
Rich Hall, Copywriter
So what now? That bits easy. You just need to Glam Up & Give!