It’s been four years in the making and at last, our campaign for Age UK has launched.
It’s about breaking down the barriers between generations, equipping everyone with the tools to launch fascinating conversations that reveal the rich details of people’s lives, creating an emotional connection between them.
This year, of all year, Age UK Suffolk is dependent upon the generosity of people and businesses in this county to support their great work. With funding cuts eating into the budget for crucial services, it’s essential that this year’s campaign forges an emotional connection between Age UK’s clients and potential donors.
I’ve been working on this campaign since I found out in 2012 that the charity was only the 14th most (or least) supported charity in Suffolk. That bothered me, both as a daughter and as a businesswoman. We have an ageing population, increasingly disparate communities and Age UK’s work is vital. Yet there’s often a sense of separation between younger people and their older neighbours. Every square mile of Suffolk, on average, is home to ten lonely older people. That’s simply not right.
I wanted to find a way to create a better connection between the generations. In this age, where few families sit down for dinner together and Granny is often miles away from younger family, that’s an important thing to do. So Age UK’s campaign for 2016 is all about finding shared conversations, getting to know people and unlocking the stories of their lives.
The campaign, which we are calling ‘There’s More to Me’, makes the point that everyone you meet is not simply what you see. They are a treasure trove containing every song they’ve heard, every place they’ve been, everyone who’s been part of their lives. And all you have to do, to unlock this treasure, is ask.
Our starting point for these conversations is a film. It’s a short, affectionate and celebratory piece in which we meet a small group of Suffolk people and they share this thought with us.
So what will happen with this?
Age UK Suffolk is building this theme into their work with the elderly, including into their dementia support programme. This taps into research about the immense value of unlocking memories for people who are living with dementia. It will also improve the quality of conversations between carers and older people, adding to everybody’s quality of life.
Age UK is also creating a schools activity programme around this theme. This will help younger people and older people in our communities to meet, will oil the wheels of conversations and allow them to find things in common and to discover each other’s stories. We have created a short questionnaire of topics guaranteed to unlock people’s fascinating stories and break down the barriers between generations.
The stories we discover will go onto Age UK Suffolk’s website, giving the charity a rich resource of information to share, to build awareness of their work and the value they provide to this community.
And this will be the backdrop to a fundraising campaign that uses this theme to directly relate donations to actions. Corporate and private funding partners will be given details of people or activities that they can sponsor. People like to know where their money goes, and the fundraising strategy build around this campaign will allow that to happen.
We know this won’t be easy. Age UK Suffolk, like every organisation, is fighting against cuts and competition. But people don’t stop needing the charity because times are hard – in fact, Age UK’s job gets more important by the day. And that’s why this campaign, to raise their profile, get people talking to each other and encourage support, is so incredibly important.
It’s not a campaign for Age UK nationally is it? It’s a local partner, Age UK SUFFOLK, you should be clearer with that messaging as a communications agency instead of trying to convey that you are working with the national charity. The idea is a nice but will it make people donate? Unlikely.
Dear Mr Norton,
Thank you for your comment. We tried to send you an email but the address you gave us didn’t work so please forgive the public response!
Thanks for your concern about the campaign’s likely impact. Yes, success depends on the input of people at Age UK and amongst their community. As you rightly identify, they need funding and donations, desperately – this work is designed to help people see their work in a new light, become interested and then, we hope, support them – as well as to help them deliver their regular services in a fresh way that their volunteers and clients enjoy.
The enhanced profile they have achieved so far with this has raised their morale, helped to bring in a sizable donation from a local organisation and opened up a lot of pro bono media space, which is a good start; and they are bringing a lot of energy into rolling this out in schools, businesses and other organisations who are in a position to help them.
Our reference to them veers between Age UK and Age UK Suffolk, for ease as much as anything, we’re certainly not pretending to do something we haven’t done. As you’ll see on our blog we are, in the words of the local paper here, ‘Suffolk and Proud’. Not all our clients are local, some are global, but this campaign is for Suffolk.
I’m sorry if we have, in our enthusiasm for this project, irritated you.
I think it’s a great campaign – well thought out and based on the reactions I have read in the press and on social media, well received. You should be congratulated rather than criticised – offering something of this quality for free is exceptional and anyone who knows Spring is well aware that you don’t need to pretend to work on national accounts, you already do. It is ungracious comment like this on a blog about work Spring has provided to a charity without charge and perhaps Mike may wish to think how he could contribute constructively next time.