#AttackOnNature: Harnessing the power of digital to #DefendNature

When the major conservation charities show their anger and mobilise their memberships of millions, there’s something big to fight. In the week of the mini budget, it was announced that laws protecting wildlife and green places would be amended or scrapped and planning regulations would be eased in investment zones to accelerate growth. At a time when nature is under threat and the climate is on a knife-edge, these decisions were seen as an attack on nature by conservation groups and they swung into action as never before.

The challenge was to mobilise the usually small-c conservative memberships, to explain the complexities of what was being proposed, to fight for change. Could they speak with one voice? Could they get the Government to hear the anger and consider a rethink? Would it unite or alienate the charity’s memberships?

In the three weeks since this started, Twitter has been the focus of messaging and campaigning. Here are some examples of how different organisations responded, the comms and calls to action they shared, and what the impact has been so far.

RSPB

On Thursday 22 September, RSPB tweeted to say that they were “deeply concerned that the Government is about to start a full-on attack on the laws that protect nature”. Strong words from a usually friendly account. By the next day, following the mini budget, things had escalated.

“Make no mistake, we are angry.” These stark words following the mini budget, sent at 6.40pm on Friday 23rd set the tone for the campaign. This 13-tweet thread explained the situation and its urgency (“If ever nature has needed you, it’s now.”). It has been liked 70k+ times and shared 40k+ times. People and other organisations replied to the thread in support. I saw people saying that they had joined or renewed their membership. The emoji, strong words and black and white image with the quote made people notice this tweet. It became the poster tweet for the campaign. (Note that the same content shared on Facebook on the Monday got much less engagement.)

Some of the other big conservation charities also tweeted concern. Here’s a thread of those initial responses from Woodland Trust, The Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust.

Over the weekend, RSPB responded to the outcry and shared a watch this space thread on Sunday and used the #AttackOnNature hashtag for the first time.

On Monday, the action started. A 14-tweet thread with a black and white image of a robin with a red X across it, described ‘the plan’. It included an e-action, a specially worded email to send to MPs in England.

The Guardian observed the activity and reported on the story – ‘We are angry’: green groups condemn Truss plans to scrap regulations and Green charities urge millions of members to oppose Tories’ ‘attack on nature’. They also reported on the backlash – Tory MPs dismiss critical RSPB campaign as ‘marketing strategy.

RSPB maintained high activity to keep up the momentum. They changed their homepage from an autumn story about migrating birds, to the campaign. On Twitter and their other channels, they shared updates and explained the detail of the proposals all with an approachable tone of voice (“thanks for sticking with us“). This 18-tweet thread contains just text. A thread from their Conservation Science team added more technical detail. Information was shared about meetings with ministers. And a more detailed explainer about investment zones was shared. They appear to have stopped all other messaging except for the campaign. There are no nice bird pictures to distract from the job in hand. They’ve been adding information, answering questions, sharing updates, keeping people involved. Understandably engagement has dropped from that initial huge spike for the mega tweet but threads are still getting thousands of likes.

To date, over 109,000 people have used the e-action site. In the past three days 10k people have used it. They are likely to be a mix of members and non-members so presumably there is still huge scope for this to have more impact. RSPB’s membership is 1.2 million people.

A quick look around individual RSPB accounts from specific reserves and areas found RTs of the corporate messages but otherwise business as usual with opening times and sightings. A missed opportunity to regionalise support?

RSPB have helpfully shared a timeline of the campaign to date (Attack on Nature – the story so far) and say that there is more to come. The RSPB are ‘not ruling out’ direct action to defend nature from government policy and they have talked about the rage of Middle England.

While RSPB seemed to lead the response, other big organisations quickly followed.

The Wildlife Trusts

The Wildlife Trusts have driven a similar campaign of action and information. They used the #AttackOnNature hashtag and added #DefendNature. Their 5-step action was to tweet and email your MP and local councillor (“This impacts where you live and they need to speak up too”). 1400+ people have pledged to do these actions.

The Wildlife Trusts have been sharing campaign messages alongside their usual positive comms. They wrote a comprehensive blog post (Defra fails to assuage fears over deregulation and farming reforms) and shared direct to camera pieces from well-known conservation experts.

Some local Wildlife Trusts have been mobilising their supporters. There have been meetings like this one in Hampshire attended by Chris Packham and members of other local groups. Surrey Wildlife Trust shared their own calls to action. Sussex Wildlife Trust shared a video from their reserve. One of Essex Wildlife Trusts’ ecologists spoke on a video. The CEO of Herefordshire Wildlife Trust spoke to the BBC. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s CEO spoke to the Yorkshire Post (Government must rethink dangerous environmental plans). Kent Wildlife Trust shared a video saying “Please be angry”.

In week three, The Wildlife Trusts, added postcards to send to MPs.

United we stand

Many environment and conservation charities took to Twitter to add their voices.

Campaign letters:

• Woodland Trust called for a cast iron commitment from the government that it wouldn’t turn its back on woods, trees and wildlife. 330+ people have emailed their MP via the campaign.
• WWF said no more broken promises and launched their own MP letter. They also said that more than a million people saw their thread about farming.
• Ramblers GB launched their own MP letter, saying ‘protecting nature and people’s access to it is vital’.
• “We will need your help to stop this environmental vandalism,” asked the Bat Conservation Trust who shared their own letter.
• BugLife encouraged their members to write to their MPs via the RSPB. As did Rewilding Britain.

Statements:

• National Trust’s Director General made a statement. And later issued a press release – Green not grey growth and a blog post – Campaigning for beauty, nature and heritage. Her threat of mobilisation of 5.7million members was reported in The Times.
• The Community Planning Alliance wrote to the Secretary of State, Simon Clarke MP. They represent 613 grassroots groups campaigning against local developments threatening green spaces. They stood in solidarity with the sector.
• The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland wrote to the Secretary of State, Ranil Jayawardena MP.
• CPRE made a statement. ‘Deregulation on steroids’ – our response to planned investment zones.
• Bumblebee Conservation Trust issued a statement in a 6-tweet thread (their most liked ever) and Facebook post.

Other actions:

• 37k people have signed Friends of the Earth’s petition.
• CPRE shared a cartoon illustrating Liz Truss’s conference speech.

Coalitions of support:

• An open letter was sent to Liz Truss from 79 charity CEOs under the umbrella of the Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL). It was reported in the Daily Express.
• 12 organisations signed an open letter published in The Telegraph – No-one can afford for nature to be under attack.
• A joint blog from the CEOs of Campaign for National Parks and National Association of AONBs argued for “Not blind opposition to progress. But opposition to blind progress.”

In this spirit of joined-up activity, where are the voices of the ethnic groups, the disability forums, the travelling communities? I’ve seen tweets where people are saying this is their fight too but they don’t feel included. Action may look different for them from the lobbying and letters in newspapers. They may be taking action in their own way which we can’t see. Or they may not see themselves as campaigning organisations or only campaign on their specific area or don’t use Twitter or digital comms for campaigning. This campaign is happening in the open so being part of it means speaking out.

The People’s Plan for Nature

Once a supporter has sent an email to their MP and councillor, what do they do next? People feel angry and powerless. How can that be harnessed and turned into action and a collective voice? WWF, National Trust and RSPB have come together to drive action through the People’s Plan for Nature. It’s unclear whether this was planned anyway or was pulled together as a result of the #AttackOnNature.

The call to action is: Join the UK’s biggest conversation about the future of nature and make your voice heard. It asks three questions with a deadline of 30 October.

National Trust shared this video promoting the campaign.

See also: #LettersToTomorrow, a climate change project. This message from Aneeshwar says everything.

Thoughts and questions

This is a campaign like no other we have seen from the conservation / environment sector. The response by so many organisations has been quick and strong. The sense of urgency is shared and from the outside there seems to be solidarity and collective action.

The proposals from the Government have provoked reaction from people and organisations not used to challenging things on this scale. The cost of living crisis, war in Ukraine, death of the Queen and countless other stresses mean that we are all operating in an intense time. Protections, standards and legislation are no longer set in stone. Charities are increasingly having to develop campaigning skills to fight for what they think is right without straying into party politics (and therefore keeping on the right side of the Charity Commission).

That this campaign is being done on such a large scale is both impressive and necessary against such harsh proposals. Will we see more of this type of collective action in other areas too?

The #AttackOnNature campaign is not owned by any one charity. Yet the messaging is pretty consistent and the actions are too. Where will this go next? What might have more impact than emails, media coverage and social media activity, which are the standard tools for charities like these?

Substantial retreats in Government policy, especially during at times of multiple crisis, means achieving cut-through for any campaign is going to be tough. How will charities deal with campaign fatigue over the medium to long-term?

Social media, primarily Twitter has been where this campaign has been visible so far. But with such headwinds, are the charities doing enough to reach the considerable number of members who are not on social media or email?

Digital comms learnings

The impact of the initial response from RSPB was so significant because they showed anger. This was a shift from their usual tone of voice so it made people take notice that something big was happening. They made their position clear within the first six words of their tweet. Tone of voice matters.

This was a useful lesson in crisis comms / campaigning. Many organisations responded quickly. Some worked over the weekend so that the action was ready to go on the Monday. Anger and action are time specific, they don’t wait. Supporters need to see that you care as much as they do. They want something to do. This campaigning used a digital comms, responsive approach.

Much of the sector came together through this. This was collective, joined-up campaigning on one issue. As we have seen above, high profile organisations quickly stated their public support for each other and endorsed a shared message adding their own expertise and comms with their members. Historically joined-up campaigning has been rare as they protect their memberships and fundaising, so this felt like a significant moment. There were however noteable gaps with some large organisations and many small ones still not doing or saying anything publicly. At what cost?

Keeping up the pressure and momentum of a campaign is hard. Having new things to say – new asks, updates about progress, explainers, guest voices of supporters, small actions – helps. It all has to be purposeful. A consistent tone of voice, use of hashtag and imagery is important too so people can spot updates. Sharing milestones is important too (like this tweet from RSPB on reaching the massive milestone of 100k letters). And saying thank you.

** Update: learnings from #AttackOnNature campaign
I wrote a summary of the panel discussion at the Charity Comms Digital Conference which I hosted featuring RSPB, Bumblebee Conservation Trust and the Community Planning Alliance. **

Your views

What do you think? Have you noticed other responses to this campaign? Have you seen anything on this scale before? Do you work in a conservation charity and have a different view? I’d love to hear from you.

We’ll be discussing this issue in a panel discussion on the first day of the Charity Comms Digital conference in November. Please join us.

Updates

Direct action

Direct action not ruled out by conservation groups over environment policies – BBC report (12 October) on the CEOs of RSPB, Wildlife Trusts and National Trust coming together with their combined membership of 8 million. “We choose our battles very carefully – and we don’t do it very often.” RSPB tweeted that they are still considering their next moves.

Do marches work – listen to this programme on Radio 4. New policing powers also mean that marches and protests are under scrutinity as never before. Can the leaders be more creative? Maybe take inspiration from #TheQueue and make a protective wall around nature? Something like the The Baltic Way. People could do it in their own communities rather than having to travel. They could join forces by holding hands, making a wall round their local green space or nature reserve. Charities with their own nature reserves could host too.

Local action

• County council explains decision to decline the government’s investment zones invite (oxfordshire.gov.uk)

Other reads

• Inferno of environmental regulations – Rosie Pearson on LinkedIn
• Truss Government’s ‘attack on nature’ – Natalie Bennett, Green Party
• Nature calls: new think tank klaxon – comms 101 – Politico
• Working together for a diverse nature sector – Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL)

#YouMadeItHappen 2019

Did you join in with the second #YouMadeItHappen day? Here’s a round-up of the day and insights it gives into impact comms.

Highlights

Charities used a mix of storytelling, graphics showing impact data, short videos showing projects and events as well as simple thank you messages. I made a Moment of some of the tweets shared on the day.

Here are some highlights:

• Dogs Trust shared a fun video with the text saying ‘thank you for everything you do to keep dog’s tails wagging’. With 14 replies, almost 1k likes and 17.3k views, it looks like it was the YMIH tweet with the highest engagement.
• I like the clear graphics used in this six-tweet thread by Macmillan Cancer. It could have used emojis or better spacing in the text of the tweets to make them easier to read. A link and / or call to action could have prompted further engagement.
• The Stroke Association created a thread of three tweets. The first was a video of the team saying thank you, second an animation of impact data and third, an animation of fundraising supporter statistics.
• Bowel Cancer UK shared a 28 second video which got 600+ views on both Instagram and Twitter. It ends with the powerful words ‘You’re helping us save lives everyday’.

Hashtag overload

The hashtag was trending 12th in the UK during the day. A quick spot-check of 20 large and 20 small charities on Twitter, chosen at random, found that only a few joined in with the hashtag. Just 30% of the large charities in my sample and only one (5%) of the smaller ones took part.

The day coincided with a busy hashtag time. Many of those in the sample who didn’t join in, were tweeting on the day with #DayOfTheGirl, #ComingOutDay content or finishing off #HospiceCareWeek or #BabyLossAwarenessWeek or taking part in #BlackHistoryMonth, their own campaign hashtags or just sharing #FridayFeelings!

#YouMadeItHappen day was at the end of a huge week of awareness raising (including #WorldMentalHealthDay, #WorldHomelessDay and #ChallengePoverty week in Scotland). Maybe the day would have had more reach during a quieter time?

Other channels

Although #YouMadeItHappen was primarily intended to be a Twitter-based, it was also across other channels.

For example, an Instagram search found a total of 2443 posts using #YouMadeItHappen (though only some of these were sent on 11 October). A few had really good engagement such as this brightly coloured thank you graphic from The Scouts which did better than its Twitter YMIH photo.

For some charities the same content did much better on Facebook than on Twitter. For example NRAS’ thank you video from the fundraising team got 1k views on Facebook but 234 on Twitter.

Getting the most out of impact comms

#YouMadeItHappen day is a chance to tell people about all the amazing work you have done, to celebrate supporters and bring life to the impact all this has had. It can be hard to know how to do this effectively.

Making a thank you video is lovely and sharing data is great, but how do you avoid the ‘so what’ factor? How do you ensure people are going to see what you have planned for the day? And then engage with it? Here are some thoughts.

Grab and keep attention

Are your messages eye-catching or colourful or different to your usual style to make people pause to look at them? Are they clear?

Can you use emojis or line spacing to make it easy to digest the information? The Stroke Association tweet did this well.

Present data clearly and limit the amount you are giving. A few juicy stats can work better than a whole impact report. Posts on Instagram seemed to do this better than many on Twitter.

Some charities primed their audience that they were going to fill the day with messages about. For example, Carers Trust shared this lovely animation at the start of the day.

Make it meaningful

Do your messages give your audience a reward or a warm feeling or a closer connection to the difference you have made? This is easier if you have cute cats and dogs or a rare butterfly to share. But everyone can use storytelling and photography, like this from Craftspace.

Very few charities were sharing stories from the people they helped. I liked this video from Epilepsy Action sharing thanks from four people who have been helped by the charity.

What are the facts or insights which are meaningful to your supporters? You don’t have to tell them everything in one go. Do these come from data or individual stories? Whose voice do they want to hear? What will they watch until the end?

What will inspire people to reply? The number of replies can be a good indication you have got it right. It can show that people feel like you are talking to them and feel like they WERE part of the impact you are sharing. Have you crafted your message so people can respond? Try coming up with a response yourself to check. Maybe you could include a question in your YMIH messaging. Are you able to respond to any comments to further build connections?

Make it easy for people to do more

Include an action. I saw very few tweets which included a link for more information. The point of the day isn’t about asking for donations or for more people to volunteer. But if you are sharing data about your impact or stories about the difference you make, make it easy for people to find out more by including a link. Make sure that this page is working harder than just listing all your annual reports to download.

Top tips

• Post first-thing in the morning to grab the attention of the commuter or people starting work (depending on your audience).
• Include a link to a webpage with data about impact if you can. (See this post by Richard Berks with examples of how charities show their achievements.)
• Include alt text / descriptions for your images, especially for information-giving graphics. If the information is too complex to describe in alt text, include a link to a page where this information is available. Think about the accessibility of your comms.
• Use threads to connect information on Twitter. Seeing messages connected as a thread makes them easier to interact with.
• Be creative! Have fun with how you can use the day to celebrate supporters and bring your work to life.

What are your top tips? I’d love to hear your experience of the day and how you crafted your comms.

Every day is YMIH day!

Why wait until next year to share stories about impact?! How often do you communicate your impact? Or share detail of your work? Do your supporters know about your achievements or highlights?

See Using digital to bring your impact to life.

More about YMIH day

• How Alzheimer’s Research UK is thanking its supporters for a record year – IoF.
• #YouMadeItHappen day 2019 – three smaller charities share their plans and tips for the day.
• #YouMadeItHappen 2019 – NCVO.

Can I help you?

Please get in touch if I can help you with content planning, training or strategy. I work with charities of all shapes and sizes. I can help give your comms or digital processes a healthcheck and ideas injection.

How to mark your charity’s anniversary

A significant anniversary can be a big milestone for any charity. Surviving and thriving for a year or five or 100 is a big deal. How should you mark this?

Should you do something public? Could you use it to tell a story, reach new people, fundraise, raise your profile or change direction? A significant anniversary can be a good opportunity to talk about your impact and ambitions for the future.

Here are two detailed examples of charity anniversaries and the digital comms they have produced to mark the occasion. Plus top tips with more examples to help you think about what you could do to mark your anniversary.

Combat Stress – 100

In May, Combat Stress will mark their centenary. With 100 days to go until the big day, they are sharing insights into their work. On Twitter they are creating one thread counting down. Follow #100StoriesIn100Days for a mix of images from their archive, stories and examples of their work today. The stories are also shared on Instagram and Facebook. Their website has a page for the centenary explaining the history of the organisation.

This volume of comms might seem impossible but if you have a rich archive of stories or facts or images, why not package them up to tell a bigger story? Take a look at the digital advent calendars to help think about the challenges of planning and keeping the momentum going over a long period of time.

London’s Air Ambulance – 30

In January, London’s Air Ambulance celebrated 30 years. On Twitter they got lovely happy birthday messages from Saracens Rugby Club, London Fire Brigade, and others. They have been sharing fundraising and press coverage via #30YearsSavingLives. Prince William was named as a patron of the campaign and films of him flying a helicopter were widely shared and viewed.

This LAA short video shares how the service started and grew from its early years. Their website is prominently promoting the 30th, with pages dedicated to the anniversary including patient stories and the fundraising appeal. They are also trying to reconnect with patients via Facebook.

Of course we haven’t all got the luxury of Prince William or a lovely red helicopter to drive comms. But this campaign boils down to telling the stories of the impact the service has made. #30YearsSavingLives is a powerful and engaging statement.

Other examples and ideas

Show your impact and ambitions:

• Remind people what you do and why it is important. People might think they know what you do (or did). This is a good time to remind them. For example, trade union Equity recently turned 90 and ran a campaign showing famous faces with their equity cards.
• Look to the future, not just the past. RNIB celebrated its 150th in 2018. It rebranded and launched new campaigns. #RNIB150 content included this video of children with sight loss talking about their futures and a video showing how the experience of blind people has changed.

Be creative:

• What can you do with your number? Kemp Hospice are turning 50. As well as decorating the windows of their shop windows gold, they have developed golden branding and shared what donations of £50 could do.
• Get out of the office. Cumbria Foundation’s 20th birthday card was given its own roadshow so that 20 organisations supported by the foundation could sign it.
• Get a nifty but simple hashtag which will work over the time you are using it. Track its use and join in conversations where you can.
• An anniversary isn’t always a celebration to shout about. Think about how you can use the event to raise awareness instead. Missing People are 25 this year. Rather than talking about themselves, an art exhibition brings together portraits of missing people.

Use materials from the archive:

• Can you do something physical if you are celebrating a big anniversary and have people visiting your office? NCVO who are 100 this year have produced an illustrated timeline in the reception of their office.
• Have you got an iconic building, product or brand that people love? Share behind the scenes stories or images from the archive. The Guggenheim in New York is 60 this year and are sharing highlights.
• Have famous people been involved in your charity? Can you share details from the archive? For example, Kensington Palace shared this photo of Diana and William’s names written in The Passage’s visitor’s book from 1993.
• If your organisation has shaped the way people live, let your archive tell the story. For example when NCT was 60, it was covered in a BBC magazine article.

Build and thank supporters:

• Reach new audiences. Is your anniversary newsworthy? Share your story with national / local press. For example the local press covered Somerset Sight’s centenary.
• Thank your existing supporters. You probably thank them all the time. What can you do to go the extra mile? Acorns Hospice in Birmingham took to the phones for their 30th to thank their supporters.
• Many anniversaries help to shape fundraising appeals. For example look at children’s charity Momentum who are 15. They are hoping to raise £900,000 this year via their 15appeal. Their year was launched with a visit from Basil Brush.
• Celebrate! Of course, some organisations just have a party – see LoveBrum 4th birthday.
• Get a cake – there must always be cake. See this Moment of amazing cakes made to celebrate the NHS’s 70th.

Document:

• Archive and look back. If you are celebrating a significant anniversary over a whole year, document events and share a review at the end. People might still be new to your news or if they were very involved, want to re-live achievements. The Fire Fighters Charity celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2018 and produced a review of the best bits including impressive fundraising activities.

Should you mark an anniversary?

Think about your audience. Do they care that you are 10 or 25 or 75? What might make them care? Do you have a story or hook to make your anniversary engaging?

Think about the practicalities too:

• Do you have the capacity (time / funds / energy) to mark an anniversary?
• Will celebrating improve or reduce team morale?
• When was the last time you did this? Celebrating 30 might not mean so much if you made a fuss of your 25th.
• What might you lose by doing nothing?
• Will your comms be over the year if it is a big anniversary (say 100 or 150), in the run up to a particular day, or just one day?
• Will you run comms across all your channels or limit to one where it fits your audience best?

New charities

If you are a new organisation, getting to an anniversary is a big deal. Celebrating years 1-5 with the people who have helped you get there can give everyone a boost. It can also be a hook to show your impact and reach a wider audience.

For example Little Village recently celebrated its 3rd birthday saying ‘we’ve made it through the critical first 1000 days of life’. They released new figures showing how demand for their service is increasing and the many different ways they have supported families to date, along with an appeal to raise £10,000.

Conclusions

These examples show that there are lots of different ways to mark an anniversary.

Planning and implementation of anniversary activities and comms can take up a lot of time and may only lead to low engagement.

But if you have a meaningful hook to share your impact, fundraise or tell a story and the anniversary is a special one, then go for it. Get creative. And don’t forget the cake.

Your tips

Have you worked on a charity anniversary or seen any interesting or unusual anniversary comms? Did supporters get involved in the activity? How much time did anniversary planning take? Was it worth it?

I’d love to hear from you. Please share in the comments.

See also

• How-to celebrate a charity anniversary – KnowHow NonProfit.
• Making the most out of anniversaries – Kirsty Kitchen for Charity Comms.

With thanks to Gemma Pettman who suggested I write about this topic.

Can I help you?

Please get in touch if I can help you. I work with charities of all shapes and sizes. I can help give your comms or digital processes a healthcheck and ideas injection or help develop your digital strategy.

#YouMadeItHappen 2018

The first #YouMadeItHappen day was brilliant. Well done to NCVO and partners for inspiring so many organisations to join in within just a month of launching it. The hashtag looked to be trending all day. Thousands of charities and other non-profits thanked their supporters and shared stories and stats showing the impact of their work.

Impact of the day

NCVO analysis shows that #YouMadeItHappen reached 5.4m people and was shared from almost 10k accounts.

I did a quick spot check of large and small charities. I chose 10 of each at random. 6/10 of the large charities had tweeted at least once using #YouMadeItHappen. 2/10 of the smaller ones had done the same. This is impressive given that the idea was only launched at the end of October via NCVO’s blog.

Many used video, threads of tweets, images and gifs to enhance their messages. Engagement though was varied. In my sample, all but a few only generated visible low interaction (likes and RTs).

The hashtag is still active – organisations are using it beyond the big day.

Highlights

Here are a few of my highlights

• Cats Protection – 15s video which had 4000+ views.
• Playing Out – chalk board showing stats from their year.
• CLIC Sargent – eye-catching gif showing three big successes.
• Trees for Cities – beautiful image sharing 6 stats.
• Bolton Hospice – launch of interactive impact dashboard.
• Bloodwise – thread of 14 tweets. (See also this thread about their longest-serving volunteer Edith.)
• Dogs Trust – 30s video of high paws with 5000+ views.
• Women’s Aid – no images, no video – just thanks.

See also:

• Lumos which got the most interaction of any tweet I saw (partly because JK Rowling RTd it?).
• Heritage organisations including Salisbury Cathedral and The National Trust joined in even though the National Lottery’s #ThanksToYou campaign also launched on Monday.
• Vicky Browning’s tweet got more than 500 likes.

See more examples in this Twitter Moment of the day.

And more examples in ACEVO’s Moment.

What did you do?

If you joined in what results did you get? It is a good time to think about what this tells you about your comms style and what works well with your audience.

• Was engagement any higher than usual? If so, why, what was different?
• Did you join in on other channels or just Twitter? What was different?
• Did you use video, graphics or gifs? Or share stats or stories? What can you learn from this?
• Did you create new images or video for the day? How easy was this to do? Could you use them again or create more for different uses?
• Did your tweets prompt people to ask questions? Did you respond or can you add this information to your website?
• Did you get any negative comments? I saw a few (like these in response to Shelter’s tweets). What did you do? Was that right?
• How can you continue to thank supporters? And talk about your impact? (see this post on communicating your impact.)

What did you think about the day?

Did you see any interesting examples you could share? Or did it pass you by?

I’d love to know what you thought about the day. Should there be a #YouMadeItHappen 2019?

Other blogs / round-ups

• NCVO analysis and highlights.
• Vinay Nair of Lightful’s blog post showing how the day was used to celebrate volunteers, thank fundraisers, thank funders and demonstrate impact.
• Amazon PR’s blog post – ‘it was a warm fuzzy hug of a day’.
• Nice thread from Constructive Voices sharing some of the more unusual charitable activities promoted through the day.
• Sarah Browning’s favourite tweets from the day.
• Why saying thank you at the right time is so important (UK Fundraising).
• More about #YouMadeItHappen day.

Join in with #YouMadeItHappen day

Do you know about #YouMadeItHappen day on Monday 19 November? The aim of the day, led by NCVO and supported by Charity Comms, Small Charity Coalition, FSI, IoF and ACEVO, is to thank supporters and show the difference charities and supporters make together.

Think of it as a free pass to talk about the impact you make. And a chance to show supporters the bigger picture – how their involvement (through fundraising, campaigning, volunteering etc) made all the difference.

Many charities don’t use social media enough to thank their supporters or talk about the impact they make or show the detail of the work they do. So this is a good opportunity with the excuse of joining in with a shared hashtag / campaign to make it easier.

Get involved

Think about how you could use the hashtag and make it work for your organisation. There are no rules for the day. Here are some ideas.

• Share a handful of interesting stories about particular people who have gone the extra mile to support you. Have they done something unusual or impressive or tough? What did their support achieve? Do you have data about impact you could use?
• Has a staff member or team achieved something particularly important which has had a big impact? This could be a good opportunity to talk about it.
• Are there people you could thank individually? Or an activity which lots of people did which you could feature?
• Share some detail about your impact. Focus on headlines from the last year or just a month or week. Or show a day in the life. Or show the impact on one person. Statistics show volume, stories bring impact to life.
• Be more creative – how can you make the messages you want to share, extra engaging? Could you create a quiz, write a poem or make a short video?
• Think about the action you want people to take and how you want them to feel. You don’t want them to think that it is ‘job done’ and you don’t need their support any more. You want supporters to feel proud of how they have contributed, happy to be part of a community of people like them who have collectively made a difference. You want them to do it again. Or if they haven’t supported, you want them to do so.

Examples

Spend some time playing around with the hashtag. How does it work with your tone of voice and the things you want to say? I have had a few tries here.

There are other suggestions in NCVO’s #YouMadeItHappen day blog post and a few tweets doing the rounds already (eg Sussex Community Rail).

Practicalities

• Capitalise the words within the # (ie #YouMadeItHappen rather than #youmadeithappen) so it is easy to read.
• Include images or graphics to illustrate impact.
• Use words which are emotive / powerful.
• Use the hashtag early in the day to get the most out of it.
• Be prepared for negative comments – how might you deal with people challenging what you are saying?
• Think about how messages may overlap or complement comms you have planned for #GivingTuesday the following week. You don’t want to distract from activity on #GivingTuesday.
• Think about how to connect and document content from the day so your work doesn’t get missed. For example, post your messages as a thread on Twitter – all at once or over the course of the day. Package your tweets up into a Moment afterwards so you can refer to them in the future.

Keep an eye on the hashtag on the day. See how others are using it and join the conversation.

UPDATE: Twitter Moment of #YouMadeItHappen and blog post with more detail about #YouMadeItHappen day highlights.

Further reading

• Using digital to bring your impact to life – includes examples of how to illustrate your impact data.
• Saying thank you on social media – lots of examples for Giving Tuesday but just as useful here.
• Six ways to get involved with #YouMadeItHappen by Lightful.

What do you think?

Is this day a good idea? Are you going to get involved?

I’d love to know what you think. Please comment or tweet.

 

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