Sean Lock plays dodgy landlord in Shelter film

Housing charity Shelter has released a humorous film starring comedian Sean Lock to raise awareness of the dangers posed by unscrupulous private landlords.

Sean Lock: the unscrupulous landlord in Shelter's latest campaign

The five-minute film, on the charity's Facebook page, was conceived by Amplify and also features 'Green Wing' and 'The Office' actors Oliver Chris and Sally Bretton.

It depicts a scene where a rogue landlord is showing prospective tenants around a grotty and dangerous property, oblivious to any problems it could pose to them.

The film was produced by Irresistible Films and directed by Chris Faith.

Shelter is hoping the film leads people to sign a petition on its Facebook page that forms part of its campaign to highlight problems with a minority of landlords in the private rented sector.

The charity has seen overall complaints about landlords increase by 23% over the past 12 months, with specific issues including shocking levels of dampness and disrepair and harassment.

Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: "Despite the amusing script and characters, the fact is that the horrifying conditions shown in the film are a reality for thousands of people in this country.

"It's frightening to see that complaints about bad landlords are increasing at such a rate, at the very time that renting a home is fast becoming the only option for thousands of families across this country. It appears that rogue landlords are cashing in on this growing market.

"With Government policy directing more vulnerable people towards the private rented sector, it seems entirely negligent of the housing minister to have not yet produced any clear commitment to clamp down on rogue landlords."

Source; Brand Republic

Facebook users to lend status updates to African mothers

An awareness and fundraising campaign by BBH for an African health development charity is appealing for Facebook and Twitter users to share their accounts with people in Africa for five days.

Amref: BBH creates Facebook campaign for the African charity

Timed to coincide Mother's Day in the UK, the project gives six women a voice to raise awareness of Amref's mission to train midwives and health workers to lower unnecessary deaths among pregnant women in Africa.

The women include two mothers, a midwife and an orphanage worker, based in countries including Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.

BBH has created an app that allows Facebook or Twitter users to share their account with one of the women and update their status twice a day with a message from the woman.

One of the last updates will encourage people to make a donation and link to a dedicated page that explains how small amounts of money can help buy bikes and shawls printed with health messages while £250 could train a midwife.

The 'Status of Africa' campaign is supported by businesswoman Tamara Mellon and actress Fay Ripley.

The charity first ran a status update campaign by BBH last year and has timed this campaign to coincide with Mother's Day. Last year around 1,600 people lent their status.

In addition it hopes to run campaigns in France, the Netherlands, the US and Canada to coincide with those countries' Mother's Days.

BBH works with the charity on a pro bono basis

Source; Brand Republic

Social Media - A New Way of Donating: FarmVille Raises Money For Japan Relief

Zynga, maker of popular social networking games such as FarmVille, said that its players had raised $US1 million ($991,081) for Save the Children’s Japan relief efforts.

Zynga asked users to donate money through the purchase of virtual goods in FarmVille, CityVille, FrontierVille and its other games.

All of the proceeds from the purchase of sweet potatoes in CityVille, radishes in FarmVille or kobe cows in FrontierVille are going towards Save the Children’s relief efforts.

Zynga spokeswoman Dani Dudeck said in a message on her Twitter feed that the money for the Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children in Emergency Fund was raised in 36 hours.

“We at Zynga are grateful that we can offer some assistance to Save the Children by mobilising our technology, people and amazing community of players to support this organisation in providing aid to the children of Japan,” the company added in a blog post.

Zynga has raised millions of US dollars in recent years through similar campaigns, most notably for the relief efforts in Haiti.

Zynga is one of a number of US technology giants offering digital ways to donate to Japan’s recovery from the massive earthquake and devastating tsunami.

Apple has set up an option on iTunes to allow users to donate from $US5 to $US200 to the American Red Cross and the Red Cross has launched a campaign on Facebook through the social media giant’s Causes function.

Twitter is providing information and advice as well as directing people to resources on the ground and offering ways to donate to help survivors.

Google’s Crisis Response page offers a “person finder” service for people searching for information about friends or family and other resources.

Source; cellhandsets.com

Woman's Weekly in British Heart Foundation push

• British Heart Foundation is teaming up with Woman's Weekly Mother's Day issue in order to raise awareness of heart decease in women.


• The edition will feature 440,00 copies and include a DVD with stand-up comedy acts by Victoria Wood.


• Nick Radmore, head of brand and social marketing at British Heart Foundation seemed excited about the collaboration: "It’s great that we have been able to continue pushing out the serious message of heart disease in women by partnering with Woman’s Weekly magazine."


• The issue is available from Wednesday 30th Mar

Source: BrandRepublic

Win a car for £1 in Sam Beare Hospice, Weybridge, charity raffle

An interesting concept similar to the campaign we saw run with NSPCC and Jaguar

The chance to win a car for just one pound is up for grabs following the launch of a charity raffle.

The annual Woking and Sam Beare Hospice’s fundraiser, which raised a record of £62,272 last year, was launched on March 26.

The Weybridge and Woking hospices have teamed up with Trident Honda to offer a new Honda Jazz 1.2 S with air conditioning as the raffle prize.

Richard Roberts, managing director of Trident Honda, said: “Despite business being extremely tough support for the Hospice's is essential and we very much hope people will buy a record number of tickets again this year to help support such a worthwhile cause.”

The car raffle team will be selling tickets every weekend until the draw takes place on October 31, alternatively phone fundraising on 01483 881752.

Cancer Research UK withdraws support for volunteer-run charity shops

Charity shop

Cost of risk management deemed too great after unspecified health and safety issues come to light

Cancer Research UK is set to withdraw support for all of its volunteer-run charity shops after inspections uncovered what it described as "considerable issues".

Simon O’Leary, head of volunteer fundraising at CRUK, told Third Sector that assessments of eight volunteer-run shops had uncovered significant problems.

He would not give precise details but said the issues included health and safety risks for supporters and the charity.

The eight shops, which are spread across England, are run independently by volunteers but raise money for CRUK. They had a gross income of £150,000 in the last financial year.

O’Leary said he asked the commercial brokerage company Colliers International, which provides support for all of the charity’s shops, to carry out a routine inspection of the volunteer-run shops last November.

He said the inspection found that all of the shops were in an "unsatisfactory state".

O’Leary said it was likely that some of the shops would close. Others might continue to operate but would be raising money for other charities, he added.

"It is unlikely we’ll be able to continue to support any of our volunteer-led shops," said O’Leary. "We can’t manage the risk in a cost-effective way."

The cost of bringing the shops up to an acceptable standard might be too high, he said, so CRUK might not be able to keep its donor promise that of every £1 given to the charity 80p would be spent on research.

He said that if a supporter came to him now saying they were interested in starting up a volunteer-run charity shop, he would ask them to seriously consider other methods of fundraising.

"There are simpler ways of raising money," he said

Source; Sophie Hudson, Third Sector Online, 25 March 2011

Majority of donors 'concerned about how money is spent'

Alistair McLean, chief executive of the FRSB

FRSB survey found many were worried their donations went on administration and fundraising

More than two-thirds of donors say they are concerned about how their donations to charities are spent, according to new research commissioned by the Fundraising Standards Board.

A survey carried out by the research company TNS OnLineBus, which polled more than 1,000 nationally representative donor adults aged between 16 and 64, found that 68 per cent of respondents were concerned about how donations were spent.

Fifty-nine per cent said they were concerned that charities spent donations on administration and fundraising.

Older age groups were more likely to have a higher level of concern about charity donations. Resondents aged from 16 to 24 were particularly concerned about charities not respecting the people who supported them, with 57 per cent citing this as a concern.

A spokeswoman for the FRSB said the full report was not yet available.

Alistair McLean, chief executive of the FRSB, said it was crucial that charities made more effort to communicate with donors.

"Donors need to understand how it all works: where the money goes, that it costs money to raise money and that that is all right," he said. "If we are to alleviate donors' concerns and build trust and confidence, we need to educate the public, conveying just how committed charities are to best practice, professionalism and accountability."

Source; Sophie Hudson, Third Sector Online, 28 March 2011

Coca-Cola to turn off Piccadilly Circus sign for Earth Hour

• Coca-Cola decided to turn off their Piccadilly Circus sign for one hour between 8:30pm and 9:30pm on Saturday 26th March (for the fifth time since WWII) in support of WWF's Earth Hour 2011.


• In conjunction with this environmentally friendly campaign Coke were also running a competition on their website where participants had a chance to win a weekend at an ecolodge as well as £150 spending money.


• Coca-Cola has been working hard to establish a responsible reputation as a brand and hoped that they would encourage their consumers to do the same by participating in the campaign to help prevent climate change.

Source: Brandrepublic

Merging income tax and national insurance would provide huge Gift Aid boost, tax experts claim

• It has been recommended by the Office of Tax Simplification that national insurance should be included in the income tax. If this would be implemented it would mean that the value of gift aid would increase by a significant amount since gift aid could then be claimed on national insurance as well as income tax.
• If the proposal came true charities would receive £0.47 per pound donated as opposed to £0.25 per pound which is what they currently receive.
• Although it's clear that this would have a huge impact on the the charity sector it's very unlikely that the British government would allow the new scheme to be realised.

Source: Guardian

Daniel Craig dons a dress for equality

Equality, a charity which focus on highlighting the inequality between men and women, have released a film featuring Daniel Craig to promote International Women's Day

The film which highlights political and social accomplishments of women is launched in celebration of the 100th Birthday of IWD.

"Nowhere Boy" director Sam Taylor-Wood directed the Daniel Craig film with the voice of Dame Judi Dench.

The film can be viewed online and in cinemas in order to highlight inequality issues.

The film can be viewed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkp4t5NYzVM&feature=player_embedded

Source: Campaign