When developing any campaign, we should always focus on its main goal and effectiveness, rather than pursuing creativity for its own sake. Charity campaigns have a clear objective: they cannot disappear because we’ve indulged in what we consider ‘cool’ solutions. Like any other campaign, a charity campaign conveys a specific message to its target audience. Therefore, the target audience, along with its unique characteristics and points of engagement, should be at the core of the creative process.

Creative charity campaigns are best suited to three main methods.

Involvement of influencers with a certain social capital

The audience’s favor is achieved by building trust with the help of a certain opinion leader. With the outbreak of full-scale war, each of us saw dozens of open meetings a day, but hardly supported them. It was quite another thing to have a meeting with Prytula and Lachen or the Lions in a Jeep. Trust in them closed the meeting in a matter of hours.

Working with the emotional level

Rarely does a charity campaign work on a rational level. Usually, it is about the level of emotions, which can range from empathy to anger. Such campaigns seem to distract you from the daily hustle and bustle and make you focus on the charitable request. As part of the WARREGULAR (war routine) campaign, which aims to support Ukrainian medics, the provid agency worked with an empathetic component, demonstrating how military circumstances change the quite ordinary actions of medics into literally extraordinary ones. Also during the war, we can see how philanthropists accumulate anger into effective collections. On the same day that Ukraine suffered another massive missile attack from Russia, Serhiy Prytula and Serhii Sternenko launched the “For Revenge” collection and raised more than 300 million in one day. Involvement in the cultural component also means working with emotions, as in the case of the collection of the Olena Zelenska Foundation and the Antytila band and its rendition of “Shchedryk.”

Convenient and simple mechanics

The third method is the simplest, but no less effective. It encourages the audience to pay off a certain debt caused by a sense of guilt and answer the question: “What did you do to win?” Such mechanics are organically integrated into everyday life, such as refueling your car with Pulls fuel in the OKKO network and transferring 1 hryvnia from the cost of each liter to the reconnaissance complex. Or, for example, activating the “Superpower: Help for the Armed Forces” feature in the Kyivstar tariff, where 50 UAH is directed to the “Come Back Alive” fund. This does not require any additional effort from the audience, but it gives them the feeling of “I am good”.

Each of the methods described above fulfills its task, and each can be used separately, but for better results, I recommend combining them. Attracting donors on an ongoing basis requires companies and foundations to constantly reassemble ideas and mechanics. After all, we are all now like that meme with Mel Gibson and Christ, in which charity fundraisers are Gibson, and Ukrainians on the 300th day of full-scale war are Christ.