Expectation
06 Apr 2010
I’m on tenterhooks at the moment. As a die-hard apple fan, I’m waiting for the iPad to arrive in the UK. The date hasn’t been announced yet, but the marketing has been targeted at building a sense of excitement, and it’s worked.
Oh and I’m also waiting for the imminent arrival of child number three. More important, certainly, but less relavent to charity strategy!
The reason for raising the question of expectation is to wonder why it’s so rarely used as a tool of communication within the charity sector? For sales and marketing types hyping a new product it’s bread and butter. For scriptwriters and directors, the expectation or dramatic tension of an ongoing story which the reader/viewer becomes a part of is what keeps us watching.
Why then, when we’re communicating with supporters and donors, do we almost always see charities taking a “facts only, this is how it is” line? Surely documentary writers have blazed a trail along the line between accuracy and style which we could easily follow. What’s wrong with us telling a compelling part of the story now, and asking someone to come back and find out more? It’s easier than ever to do, and the style and language is well accepted.
Clearly we’re nervous about playing on real hardship and desperate need, about being too deliberate and manipulating in our communications. But isn’t that kind of our job? Isn’t there something we could learn about an ongoing sense of expectation which could lead to an ongoing sense of supporter engagement. What will happen to the programme I’m funding, the child I’m sponsoring, the campaign I’ve donated to? Will it work? If I care enough to give, I probably care enough to find out.
Oops, got to go, that’s the phone …
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