The Story: Colchester & Ipswich Hospitals Charity (CIHC) has a strong community, and many of its members have felt moved to donate after witnessing the care and dedication of the hospital’s staff. Supporters currently donate to over 200 different funds, to help support services and experiences beyond what NHS funding provides. Though this wide array of funds has its advantages, it is also complex to manage operationally, and many departments crucial to patients’ treatment receive far less much-needed funding than others. CIHC wanted to develop an unrestricted fund that would allow them to direct money to services that needed additional funding to optimise the patient experience.
The Story: Colchester & Ipswich Hospitals Charity (CIHC) has a strong community, and many of its members have felt moved to donate after witnessing the care and dedication of the hospital’s staff. Supporters currently donate to over 200 different funds, to help support services and experiences beyond what NHS funding provides. Though this wide array of funds has its advantages, it is also complex to manage operationally, and many departments crucial to patients’ treatment receive far less much-needed funding than others. CIHC wanted to develop an unrestricted fund that would allow them to direct money to services that needed additional funding to optimise the patient experience.
The Brief: Our task was to develop a proposition that could reflect the fund’s purpose in an engaging way that would motivate donations.
Our Response: The proposition development involved strategic stages including quantitative research on what the community think CIHC are and why they exist and qualitative research interviews with key stakeholders to unpack some of the trends we had found. From there we developed four propositions that were presented to staff and potential donors before narrowing it down to one successful proposition.
The most popular proposition focussed on the impact family and friends can have to help offer extra comfort and cutting-edge technology to their loved ones, beyond what the NHS provides. We produced matrixes expanding how it could be used across all digital and direct marketing channels, as well as different campaign types for various audiences.
Why it Works: The approach taken to develop the proposition enabled us to really get under the skin of why CIHC exists from the perspective of its community. We were able to produce a sustainable and audience-centric offering that resolved some of the tensions obstructing its success, such as confusion on the difference between NHS funding and charity funding, and nuances that would stop it from being promoted by staff. The proposition is strong and flexible enough to be used across multiple campaigns and channels, even as the charity and hospital’s governance changes.
Making a difference to happiness and healing