The charity has started matching hearing dogs with deaf children
The charity has extended its service and started matching hearing dogs with deaf children
Organisation: Hearing Dogs for Deaf People
Campaign: My Best Friend
After 30 years training hearing dogs and matching them with deaf adults, the charity Hearing Dogs for Deaf People has started providing the same service for children.
The charity launched this new strand of work with its My Best Friend campaign in March this year.
So far, it has raised £40,623 through its JustGiving fundraising web page after attracting national and international media attention.
The charity says the dual emotive appeal of deaf children and their amazing hearing dogs proved a huge draw for the campaign, which reached more than 40 million people through coverage on BBC Breakfast, The One Show, ITV's Daybreak and CBS News in the US.
Hearing Dogs for Deaf People spent £7,500 on the campaign, which was aimed at raising funds and awareness about the benefits hearing dogs can bring for deaf children.
Michele Jennings, chief executive of Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, says: "My Best Friend smashed its £30,000 target and money is still coming in.
"We kicked it off with a full-page article in The Mail on Sunday. We made sure the JustGiving page was ready so that anyone moved by the article could donate."
The charity had a display at Crufts to showcase the work of their hearing dog training centre. It also asked young beneficiaries to explain to the media how their dogs had improved their lives.
EXPERT VIEW: Grahame Darnell, managing director, Darnell Consulting
This campaign has made good use of PR for fundraising purposes in order to get around the need for expensive media buying. The charity achieved some great coverage and used Twitter and YouTube intelligently to amplify the campaign. The real-life stories it used were emotive and did a good job communicating the issue. It made a clear appeal for donations as part of the story, which is crucial. The overall ROI is healthy, which only leaves one question: can it engage some of these donors beyond a one-off cash gift?
EXPERT RATING:
Creativity: 3
Delivery: 4
SCORE: 7 OUT OF 10
