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Igniting 3-years of Ambition

The Story: The University of Southampton's Ignite Programme provides students from disadvantaged and low-income backgrounds with financial and practical help to study at the University. Now in its fourth year, the Programme saw its largest ever intake of 60 first-year students and set the target for the years to come. It also saw the graduation of its first cohort, demonstrating the success of the programme.

The Story: The University of Southampton's Ignite Programme provides students from disadvantaged and low-income backgrounds with financial and practical help to study at the University. Now in its fourth year, the Programme saw its largest ever intake of 60 first-year students and set the target for the years to come. It also saw the graduation of its first cohort, demonstrating the success of the programme.

The Brief: Black Bear was asked to create a 24-month, multi-channel campaign strategy to solicit new direct debit gifts and upgrade existing regular gifts to create a more stable income stream over the next few years.

The continuation of DM was a fixed requirement of any strategy and was included in the brief. A DM pack was to be sent to a broad audience of around 28,000 with a regular giving-centric ask. This was to be accompanied by email, social media and other stewardship activities.

Our Response: To support the aim of generating sustained regular gifts from donors over a longer period, a new proposition 'Support an Ignite student throughout their degree' was created, meaning that supporters could support students from their first year to their third year, (including graduation where applicable) and have much more engaging and emotional attachment to the students. To back this up, Black Bear extended the campaign strategy to 36-months.

From this new proposition, a DM pack was created which included a letter from the Vice Chancellor, a supporter himself, a newsletter uplift piece, and donation form. The newsletter focussed on a current student as the case study, supported quotes from other current and graduate students of the Programme, demonstrating the importance and impact of the Programme.

The letter and donation from featured variable copy and asks to align to each supporter segment.

Results: The DM alone generated 38 new recurring gifts worth £9,610 annually and 17 upgraded recurring gifts worth £1,927.00 annually. It also generated 78 single gifts worth £12,903.38.

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