The SOFII history project
Welcome to the SOFII history project! To be a great fundraiser you need to be aware of what has come before and there is no better place to explore our collective past than here. Have you heard of the first ever major donor dinner from 970 BC? Have you read the wise words of Moses Maimonedes, who explored the eight levels of giving 800 years ago? Are you aware of the ground-breaking campaigns from the Victorian era? All these treasures and many more can be found in the SOFII history project. Dive in to learn the valuable lessons of fundraisers past. You can find:
Take a trip in SOFII’s time machine: the SOFII history project - introduction and contents
Part 1: treasures from fundraising’s history here.
Part 2: the all-time fundraising greats here.
And Part 3: the legends of fundraising here.
Deerfield Academy: Bruce Barton’s fundraising letters from 1946/47, letters 6, 7 and 8
by SOFII
Featured here are letters six, seven and eight from the 21 letters in this SOFII series, three more fine examples of the fundraising letter-writer's art from an age gone by.
Read moreDeerfield Academy: Bruce Barton’s fundraising letters from 1945, letters 3, 4 and 5
by SOFII
These letters are masterful examples of wrapping up serious information in easy conversational style. Find letters three, four and five here.
Read moreDeerfield Academy: Bruce Barton’s fundraising letters from the 1940s, letters 1 and 2
by SOFII
Written between 1944 and 1960, the 22 letters in this series reputedly raised over US$2 million. Serious direct mail copywriters will study these letters carefully and will profit accordingly.
Read moreDeerfield Academy: the Bruce Barton classic long copy letter from 1925 that pulled a 100 per cent response
by Carolina Herrera
He sounds like the racy detective hero from a 1930s crime thriller. But Bruce Barton is something else, for sure – a great copywriter and communicator.
Read moreThe Salvation Army: the ‘for God’s sake care, give us a pound’ campaign
by SOFII
In this campaign the Salvation Army revealed the urgent need of people who had fallen off the edge of society. Their shocking photographic campaign sought to jolt people into action with the hope of raising £1 million.
Read moreMoses Maimonides: the 90-degree shift, 800 years ago
by Reinier Spruit
Moses Maimonides, Jewish philosopher and scholar, and his famous Eight Levels of Giving.
Read moreHeart and soul: Charles Dickens on the passion and power of fundraising
by Aline Reed
‘Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.’ Charles Dickens.
Read morePhilanthropy in ancient times: some early examples from the Mediterranean
by Sarah Bond
In this new addition to the SOFII history project we look at the early beginnings of charity. We uncover the origin of the word ‘philanthropy’ and how the philosophy of philanthropy permeated the lives of ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans on every level of their daily lives.
Read moreLessons for fundraisers from yesterday’s cigarette advertising: instructive campaign images from the 1930s, 40s and 50s
by Ken Burnett
This article has been on SOFII for some time, but I have a feeling we didn’t actually tell anyone. We hang our heads in shame and urge you to check out some astonishing cigarette adverts – and what campaigners and fundraisers can learn from them.
Read moreDavid Ogilvy’s letter for the United Negro College Fund, from 1968
by Mark Phillips
Back in 1968, David Ogilvy was appointed as Chair of the United Negro College Fund. He soon realised that he might be able to use his copywriting skills to help the organisation raise funds and wrote a piece that used an unusual delivery mechanism: a train.
Read moreThe Wishing Well Appeal for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital
by SOFII
It's difficult to do justice to a capital campaign as wide, and complex. This is a condensed summary of a major capital campaign which, at the time, was the largest appeal ever mounted in the UK.
Read morePliny the Younger and the first appeal for matching funds, c. 100 AD.
by SOFII
About 20 years after famously witnessing the eruption of Vesuvius that engulfed Pompeii, Pliny the Younger, perhaps the most generous benefactor of the Roman era, created a matching fund to help the parents in his home town to fund their school.
Read more
