Twitter helps Amnesty International

Historically, Amnesty International has been all about letter-writing – but these days they’ve started using Twitter to great effect: they created a hashtag – #FreeFaizan – to try and get a teenager who had been unlawfully detained, released; and by tweeting directly at the governor in charge, they got their result.

Faizan was freed, primarily because the governor was forced to reconsider his decision.

Insight

• A brief look into the power social media can give to individuals and organisations. Proof that you can have an actual conversation on these platforms.
• Also interesting to see an organisation with a reputation for tradition getting involved in such an innovative environment.

Cancer charity works on Wikipedia

Cancer Research UK is worried that Wikipedia is providing inaccurate information about cancer to a wide audience, and has set its specialists to work to clean up the mistakes. With Wikipedia telling the BBC that it had over 3.5 million hits on cancer-related pages in January alone, this seems a very worthwhile endeavour.

BT launches charitable giving website

BT has recently launched their own giving website, MyDonate, which will compete with sites such as JustGiving and Virgin Money Giving.

What's different about MyDonate is that they will not charge the charity a subscription fee or take a commission on the donation. Instead the only charges that will be deducted from donations will be the credit card fees.

Charities such as Cancer Research UK and NSPCC have been involved in the process of developing the new site.

MyDoante is open to all UK-registered charities and the fundraising pages are fully customisable and link to social network sites such as facebook and twitter.

The chief executive of BT, Ian Livingston, said: "We've launched MyDonate because we want to ensure that 100 per cent of people's fantastic fundraising efforts and donations go to the charities of their choice."

Which charities are advertising in the national press (April 4th)?

Christian Aid continues its campaign calling for donations in The Times, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph on the 4 of April.

The ad calls on people to go online to a campaign specific site (http://www.povertyover.com/) to learn about Christian Aid’s Manifesto For Change and to donate to make a difference.

Insight

• A very strong campaign specific site with a unique and very slick hero image/video which tells quite a striking storyof poverty over the last 200 years.
• Branding of the microsite is consistent with the branding on the advert across the papers, strengthening the message.
• High levels of interactivity and social network implementation with 2 click to share mechanisms on Facebook & Twitter available.

The Guardian; The charity also makes an impact with an ad in The Guardian in place of the paper's usual centrefold editorial image. The ad, which takes on the style of the editorial, shows children working in a mine.

Insight

• Although distant in terms of brand and message integration the ad creates a significant impact in a high interest spot within the newspaper.
• This will seek to not only drive awareness of the charity but effectively displays one of these ‘roots’ to poverty the other ads focus on.