Creator / originator

ActionAid/the Bluefrog agency.

Summary / objectives

This pack is sent to people who are interested in sponsoring a child and our aim is to give them everything they need to start sponsoring. Once they sign up, they receive a welcome pack, which is in a similar style.

Background

ActionAid’s child sponsorship programme has been running in the UK for over 35 years. In 2008, we revisited the enquirer and welcome packs with the intention of making the materials the best that could be found anywhere.

Special characteristics

This idea was actually one of four that Bluefrog presented to win a pitch to produce ActionAid’s child sponsorship materials. It was definitely our favourite and we were really pleased when the team at ActionAid liked it as much as we did.

When you look at the front cover, you might think it’s quite a simple piece, but a great deal of thinking went into it. ActionAid wanted to ensure that child sponsorship would be presented as a positive, inspiring, non-paternalistic and incredibly special personal relationship. We looked at this from the viewpoint of the sponsored child and realised that from her, or his, point of view this actually boils down to:’sponsorship is about you and me’.

Simon Lane, art director at Bluefrog, takes full credit for the closing device – the length of string that links ‘you’ and ‘me’ and secures the pack. We liked the way that it represents the bond between child and sponsor and vice versa. A thank you also goes to the wonderful ActionAid volunteers who agreed to go to the considerable effort of using that string device each time they sent out this pack.

The sleeve on the inside left contains the details of the child who the supporter is being asked to sponsor.

On the inside right, there is a series of short folds that takes you through the wider implications of child sponsorship – the relationship with the child, how the sponsorship money is used and so on. The journey across the pages fits with ActionAid’s brand of ‘End Poverty. Together’.

One aspect that both agency and client really love is the fact that the drawings for the pack were all done by children who were sponsored through ActionAid. They did a great job.

Influence / impact

Feedback from sponsors was excellent. They really liked the materials and it got their relationships with the children they were sponsoring and ActionAid off to an inspiring start.

Merits

It’s lovely that I don’t have to answer this! You had already found a place for it in your showcase. It just took a little time to trace it back to Bluefrog and for us to fill out the details. So thanks, we feel very honoured to be chosen.