The Ken Burnett archive
Welcome to the Ken Burnett archive! This is a repository of all the words and wisdom of SOFII’s founder, a man with over forty years’ (sorry Ken) experience in fundraising, charities and social change. Drawing on his extensive website, www.kenburnett.com and many other published sources, we’ll bring you recollections, thought pieces and case studies from a stellar career in the sector.
Magic moments part two: how some of the world’s best causes got started
by Aline Reed & Ken Burnett
SOFII casts its spotlight on the early instants of inspiration that gave rise to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Greenpeace, Centrepoint, Freedom from Torture, NSPCC, the Fred Hollows Foundation and University College London
Read moreMagic moments part one: how small beginnings inspire great causes
by Aline Reed & Ken Burnett
In this article Aline Reed and Ken Burnett describe some great founding moments – how small beginnings can inspire great causes.
Read moreBuilding the fundraising dream team
by Ken Burnett
This addition to SOFII’s How to be an Effective Client showcase will help you assemble the team that’ll produce your next great fundraising campaign.
Read moreThe National Asthma Campaign: Straws mailing
by SOFII
This revolutionary pack from 1991 features an irresistible involvement device, an easily detachable plastic drinking straw that readers are invited to detach, open and breathe through for less than a minute. It is an imaginative way of involving recipients and enabling them to feel for themselves what it’s like to live with asthma.
Read moreA debt to the master: the Ogilvy effect
by Ken Burnett
Part two of SOFII’s tribute to ‘the pope of advertising’, David Ogilvy.
Read moreThe emotional brain
by Ken Burnett
Seasoned fundraiser Ken Burnett says of his latest article, The Emotional Brain, ‘It seems to me that fundraisers don’t know as much as they might about what it is that makes people give and why; what makes them loyal or repeat donors and what binds them to our cause above other causes, come what may. So I’m fairly sure that the emotional brain is the most important subject I’ve written about in a long time. Working on it has quite altered my view of what, as fundraisers, we should be doing when we acquire and then communicate with our donors.’
Read moreCommitment. And why it matters more than anything for fundraisers
by Ken Burnett
Has the argument about the value of donor commitment finally been brought to an end? Ken Burnett reports on how Roger Craver of the Agitator and his colleague Kevin Schulman have developed a way to calculate your donors’ commitment and, from this, ascribe a commitment score to each of them.
Read moreThree little words lost – the end of Make Poverty History
by Ken Burnett
The ambitious proposition explicit in the Make Poverty History campaign may not yet have succeeded in changing political agendas, far less in eradicating poverty. But it has certainly captured the public's hearts and minds.
Read moreInvesting in testing - part 1
by Ken Burnett
Has the rigorous testing regime that used to pervade in every seriously ambitious charity been allowed to slip in your organisation? Are your trustees afflicted with the ‘lowest possible acquisition cost’ mentality? You must test properly, says Ken Burnett, otherwise your prospects for innovation are reduced to a matter of random chance.
Read moreA tribute to George Smith, 4th March 2012
by Ken Burnett
SOFII pays tribute to George Smith, fundraising guru and communicator par excellence, who died on Friday 2nd March.
Read moreFifty ideas that could transform how the public views street and door-to-door fundraising.
by Ken Burnett
In Agatha Christie’s classic Murder on the Orient Express an assortment of passengers are marooned with a murderer on a train stuck in a Yugoslavian snowdrift, with only little Hercule Poirot to help them work out what’s really going on.
The story seems to me an analogy for how we fundraisers might work ourselves out of the fix we find ourselves in, with our equivalent of being stuck fast in snow – the negative view the public has for our most successful method of acquiring new donors in volume, face-to-face fundraising on the street (F2F) or door-to-door (D2D).
WaterAid’s plastic bag mailing
by SOFII
Every day in developing countries thousands of women (mainly) face the difficult task of fetching and carrying water from its source to their homes. It’s a gruelling daily duty most donors would find very hard to imagine. Could this concept be applied imaginatively to a fundraising appeal? Of course it could!
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