Faced with an aging donor-base and barriers to traditional ways of collecting, Auckland City Mission needed to find a different way to breathe new light and life into their Christmas appeal.

The secret? Three innovations were added to the proven “Become Someone’s Angel” campaign platform:

1. a low cost, responsive video DRTV was created (with the help of music from an Auckland cultural icon)
2. social blogging was deployed into social networks to give instant reach without the cost of paid media*
3. the online donation process was reviewed and overhauled (with a little help from Givealittle) to make online donations effortless.

Underpinning these three innovations was a campaign that took the idea of becoming someone’s angel to a new level by helping Aucklanders see how they would literally “light up Auckland through their generosity”.

As a result, on-line donations rose by 57% on the 2013 result (which was a record year) to go over the $500,000 mark and deliver the most successful Christmas Appeal ever at an ROI of $21.52.

*having created and seeded 15 and 30 second videos throughout social networks, Sky TV and TVNZ were then convinced of the value of picking up the ad.