Orbis
Trachoma appeal
The challenge here was to engage supporters of Orbis’ Flying Hospital and encourage them to make a donation in support of the charity’s wider work, in this case trachoma prevention. Our approach was to take a seemingly ‘distant’ issue and to bring it home, right to the supporter’s door.
What we did
Project management, concepts, design, and copywriting for core and reminder packs
Working with our long-time collaborator, Lisa Pember, we developed three concepts, from which ‘door to door’ was chosen. This conveyed the nature of trachoma, a painful and blinding eye condition that moves from person (and home to home), as well as the steps Orbis was taking to prevent it during the Covid-19 pandemic; literally going door-to-door to ensure that no one missed out on treatment during lockdown.
Building a persuasive case
The pack worked hard to convey the extraordinary efforts involved in reaching 7.8 million people as part of a government-sanctioned Mass Drug Administration programme. And it set this against a very immediate and visual demonstration of the charity’s achievements over time in Ethiopia – with a map turning from red to green in 24 districts where trachoma has now been eliminated. Told simply and clearly, this made a powerful case for the impact the supporter’s donation could make.
Telling a human-to-human story
These convincing facts were complemented by plenty of first-hand experience from our signatory, Dr Alemayehu Sisay, Orbis’ Country Director for Ethiopia, and trachoma patient, Kubri. We also included an uplift piece urging the supporter to ‘break the chain of trachoma infection’ before it could reach little Hamdia.
We had a hunch this pack would perform well and ended up exceeding our clients target by quite some distance:
‘The Spring Appeal you worked on did really well with £62,307, against £57,600 target income (and that was a stretch target). The reminder also did great with a 15.3% response rate. We ended up mailing just under half the number of people originally planned so were chuffed that it raised £24,850 (target was £31,500 for the original volume).’
Fundraising Manager
