If you've been in one place for any length of time, you start to develop a reputation for certain things. Our esteemed colleagues past and present include Barry 'The Birdman' Evans, Steve 'Original Mr Nice Guy' Andrews and Steve 'My Specialist Subject Is Star Wars' Tse.

Unfortunately for Heather Collins, who's celebrating a glorious ten years at Whitewater this week, she developed a reputation for her ingenious if rather colourful language. She's probably added more words to the English language than Shakespeare did.

So to celebrate Heather, her ten years' hard service in the print department, and the invaluable contribution she’s made to life at Whitewater, we decided to surprise her at last Friday's agency meeting. While she popped to the ladies, we all whipped out masks of her face complete with speech bubbles of her most famous phrases, including my personal favourite, "Ass Burgers with Cheese." To say she was surprised is an understatement. But, being as it was Heather, we can't print the actual words she used when she walked back in and saw a room full of Heathers staring (and swearing) back at her. Happy 10th Anniversary Heather!

PS. Can you spot the real Heather in this picture? (Clue – she's the one without a speech bubble attached to her forehead.)

Posted by Whitewater Team at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brad Bell, our Head of Video, is in Kenya. Over the next two weeks he'll be working on a project which we think will revolutionise the way charities talk to their supporters. We hope to prove the power of giving donors inspirational feedback on how their donations are spent.

We believe that more than anything, donors want feedback on how their previous donations have been spent. And that this is the most important element of great donor care, stewardship or relationship fundraising (choose your preferred term!).

We're going to give this feedback primarily through the use of video, delivered online. Because that is the medium that gives us the most exciting opportunities to inspire donors, to deliver feedback cost-effectively… and to get our donors sharing their passion for the charity with their friends.

Our partner on this journey is the wonderful charity, SolarAid who we've had the privilege of working with over the last two years. Brad will be visiting several SolarAid projects and filming the progress that's being made. He'll be blogging while he's out there (access permitting) and you can see how the project progresses over the next year: from Kenya back to the UK – see the videos we'll be producing, how SolarAid supporters react to them and the difference this feedback will make to their loyalty to the charity (yes of course we'll be testing it!).

You may think that this is a big investment to make. The return on such an investment would have to be considerable to make it worth you doing. Well, consider this:

In the first five pages of their superb book, Building Donor Loyalty, Professor Adrian Sargeant and Elaine Jay present a powerful model on the value of improving your donor retention. They show that a 10% improvement in donor retention can translate into anything between a 50% to 200% improvement in the lifetime value of those donors (depending upon how you calculate it).

This mind-blowingly important observation is why we are doing this. It should be the foundation of every charity's individual donor programme.

So welcome to our Glass Workshop. Where you can look inside and watch, throughout 2010, how this experiment unfolds and get involved by joining the discussion.

If you'd like to talk to us about what we can do for your charity, well you know where we are. Just step inside the Glass Workshop!

Mark Roper

Posted by Whitewater Team at 04:19 PM | Permalink

We would like to apologise to all Whitewater's friends who received our Christmas ecard, featuring Mr Dean Martin's rendition of Let it Snow, and who shortly afterwards found themselves snowbound.

With hindsight we should have gone with Bing Crosby's alternative version: Let it Snow (But Just a Light Dusting With No Impact on Road Conditions or Rail Services..

Sorry.

Nick Couldry

Posted by Whitewater Team at 02:13 PM | Permalink

RNID, the leading charity working with hearing loss and hearing health, has appointed specialist direct marketing agency Whitewater to help them review and deliver a new approach to their fundraising activities. Whitewater has been selected after a two-way pitch.

Working collaboratively with the RNID team, the process will start with a full audit of RNID’s current fundraising activity. Insights generated from this research are expected to be key in driving a new donor strategy. The objective is to help RNID build a more sustainable approach, which will deliver consistent and higher value returns.

Vicky Haywood, Director of Individual Giving says, “We are delighted to be working with Whitewater. They have their finger on the pulse with a real understanding of the challenges we face. As our strategic partner we will benefit from their insight and innovative thinking to help us create an ambitious and effective strategy.”

RNID is looking to improve donor recruitment, and new product development is expected to be key to this.

Mark Roper, Managing Director at Whitewater says, “We’re really excited to help RNID through challenging times and deliver a new fundraising strategy which deals effectively with their unique strategic challenges. These include both the need to increase awareness and a cause which doesn’t tug at the heart strings of many people. These issues allow us to work where we love to be – developing strategies hinged in supporter and market insights.”

Posted by Whitewater Team at 03:34 PM | Permalink

The RSPCA won gold for Best Business Performance at last night’s DMA Awards in London. The award was for The Biggest Animal Rescue campaign, produced by Whitewater in conjunction with MC&C.

The campaign has helped RSPCA create a high volume, cost-effective source for new donors. It recruited tens of thousands of new donors and in doing so doubled previous response campaigns.

These phenomenal results were the key reason why it won this tough, results oriented category.

Read more about our campaign and watch our DRTV ad.

Posted by Whitewater Team at 11:07 AM | Permalink

Just back from another amazing trip to India with The Brooke, filming their latest DRTV ad with our Head of Video Brad.

One special request from The Brooke team was to film a community in Ghaziabad, on the eastern outskirts of Delhi, where a whole programme of work is being funded by an extremely generous American couple.

The programme includes training two village men in farriery skills. Before, if an owner's horse suffered trouble with its hooves, the owner would have to travel 20km with the lame animal to the nearest farrier. And then 20km back. Not good for the horse or the owner. Now the village has a pair of expert Brooke-trained farriers who can give on the spot treatment - and at a cheaper price.

In rural India, women often stay at home, rarely venturing out or even talking to their neighbours. The Brooke initiated a women's group in the community to discuss animal care. This proved to be a revelation to the village women, who now meet every couple of weeks to exchange experiences, lessons learned and generally socialise. Now they're no longer isolated, they discuss their problems together and their animals are thriving.

Brad got some great footage, including a big thank you from the villagers and the Brooke vet team to the American couple who made all this happen.

In an ideal world, everyone who gives - no matter how much - to a charity should be thanked in this way. Okay - we can't thank them all personally, but online video is a mass channel, so we made hay while the sun shone and grabbed loads of extra footage to show Brooke donors all the fantastic work that the charity are doing with their donations.

Nick Couldry

Posted by Whitewater Team at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

...something useful!

Actually, he has plenty of useful hints and tips, as recounted in a recent article from Mail Media Centre.
Download file.

Read his pearls of wisdom on great photography - and a few choice words on writing copy by Fran too.

Posted by Whitewater Team at 03:17 PM | Permalink