During a season when people are more likely to give, charities are much more likely to ask. Donors receive countless DM appeals from charities and are bombarded by asks outside of their mailbox as well.
Gothenburg Homeless Aid relies on generosity at Christmas which is when a substantial portion of their entire year's funding is collected. In order to stand out, they developed their no fixed abode Christmas card appeal. They produced a standard Christmas Card, that at first glance doesn't look to different from what anyone else would send out at Christmas time. Where they got really creative, was with the address.
The charity wanted to draw attention to people with no fixed address in Gothenburg, so they addressed the pack to "Lasse Persson, a doorway/tunnel/stairwell, Hisingen (a part of Gothenburg)”. They then wrote the details of the actual intended recipient on the back of the envelope. When the Swedish post office received the letters they were unable to deliver them to Lasse because he has no real address.
When they couldn't deliver the envelope, they were "returned to sender" and sent "back" to the intended recipient with a post office stamp saying "not known at this address". The yellow label on the envelope not only highlighted the fact that there are people in Gothenburg who have nowhere to live, but made it almost impossible for the recipient to simply throw it away without opening it to see what it’s all about.
The Christmas card was sent to 20,000 people in Gothenburg, and raised approximately 255,000 US dollars, making it their highest performing Christmas appeal to date.
What innovative approaches have you taken to encourage recipients to open your pack?
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