Vinnies Winter Appeal’s new strategy to attract donors

Storytelling campaigns have quickly become the new and innovative way to generate attention and donations for Charities that take advantage of the digital world.

In partnership with communications and storytelling agencies, Charities and Not-for-Profits now have the ability to produce content that engages an interactive audience to better illustrate the issues and encourage more donations.

Australia’s St Vincent de Paul Society (Vinnies) is reinvigorating their approach to donators in partnership with Marlin Communications, an agency that works with Charities and Not-for-Profits to improve connections with an Australian audience.

The campaign, Vinnies Winter Appeal, addresses homelessness and asks the question, “Where do you go when there’s nowhere to go?”

Charities and Not-for-Profits now have the advantage of social media to further communication and ask for further support. The Vinnies Winter Appeal campaign marks a new phase for Vinnies to refresh the national fundraising appeals.

“The Vinnies Winter Appeal is the first campaign to build on a new strategic approach – one that refuses to paint beneficiaries as victims but shows the core difficulty being faced by so many vulnerable children, women and men in Australia,” said a Vinnies spokesperson. “They simply don’t feel like they have another option.”

The storytelling campaign follows Jenny who has to choose whether she and her family should stay home, where she is abused by her husband, or risk danger and hunger on the street, “where more impossible choices await them.” The campaign then asks the audience whether Jenny should choose food over medicine.

The partnership with Marlin Communications aims to raise $6 million to help provide housing assistance, everyday essentials like food and clothing, case management and ongoing support to build a brighter future for people in desperate need this winter.

Marlin’s TVC and online film, shot by documentary photographer and filmmaker David Maurice Smith, will creatively introduce to the viewer the emotional reality of poverty, asking them directly, “What would you do?”

“By asking the donor to answer these impossible questions for themselves, Vinnies is helping all Australians empathise with the lived reality of homelessness and poverty which are so often visible,” said the Vinnies spokesperson.