UNICEF wanted to increase donations from “lapsed donors”– people that had made regular contributions in the past but had not donated in the past 3-5 years. Lapsed donors are a challenge in the not-for-profit category as increased competitiveness and other factors (such as a depressed economy) make it more difficult for people to contribute.

UNICEF wanted to develop a campaign that would engage lapsed donors and compel them to donate again. Overall the campaign had to raise a total of 200,000 vaccines.

In order to attract the attention of respondents and compel them to donate, we needed to create a sense of urgency. Since there was no major newsworthy event with which we could engage them, we had to invent one.

We created the ‘Immunization Drive 2008’ to accomplish this goal. The drive included a pre-set objective in order to give the program a sense of mission and to ‘challenge’ respondents to help us accomplish the target.

We personalized each DM piece with the donors’ name and recommended donation based on previous amounts given. In addition, a microsite was developed so that users could track total donations, make a donation (vaccinate a child), send an email challenge to a friend, or learn more about Unicef.

An email campaign encouraged donations, asked respondents to visit the Immunization Drive microsite and send a personalized email challenge to friends. The email encourages friends to match/beat your donation and provides links to the donation form or back to the main microsite.