A Christmas gift to address London homelessness

Christmas is a crucial time for charities and social enterprises. As well as raising funds and inspiring new supporters, they look back on their achievements and set goals for the year ahead.

People are in a giving mood and every cause wants to make sure their message is being heard and connecting with their target audience.

A great example of Christmas marketing is the film ‘Twelve Months’, which the filmmakers Catsnake created for SHP Homelessness through Pimp My Cause.

Catsnake contacted us because they wanted to use storytelling to a make a positive difference and for their work on short films with a purpose to become better known in the charity sector.

We suggested a competition amongst our causes with a custom film by Catsnake offered to the winning cause. SHP Homelessness won the competition because their work greatly moved the filmmakers and inspired their creativity.

The resulting film was called Twelve Months and although just a minute long takes you on a journey through the streets of London and shares important moments in twelve months of homelessness with Jez, the hero of the story. Catsnake engaged experienced actor Jethro Skinner to play the lead role and persuaded a talented composer to create an original score for the film based on ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’.

Dave Titmas Communications Manager said, “We entered the film competition because we were impressed by Catsnake’s ability to tell stories which engage and move people. If they could have half the office weeping over a love story between two milk bottles, we were sure they could help us tell powerful stories about homelessness and recovery.
 
Each of the twelve moments in the film was drawn from a series of interviews with SHP’s beneficiaries, so every step of Jez’s journey was shared by many of the people SHP supports. The film was embedded in a learning campaign where anyone could explore the real life stories that inspired the film.

Katie Gresham, Information Officer at SHP said, “We extended our Christmas appeal into January using the ‘12 days of Christmas’ and Twelfth Night themes. We also held viewings of the film at our homeless shelters combined with traditional Twelfth Night celebrations, which we rebranded as celebrations of social inclusion.”

The film brought a great surge of interest to SHP through social media and their website, with the film being tweeted about by celebrities such as Stephen Fry and Russell Brand. Their Christmas appeal generated a 700% increase in donations from the public.

Katie said, “Last year’s experience opened senior managers’ minds to using social media more prominently as well as pro bono partnerships. And an indirect result has been the purchase of a new video camera, which our local services are using to capture their own events as well as to teach their beneficiaries how to film. While this is a much different scale from Catsnake’s expertise, it is getting our staff thinking more about the use of video in their daily work, and is helping us capture quality content, which is the biggest hurdle to creating great fundraising campaigns.”

SHP has a great deal of experience and expertise at delivering services to support homeless and vulnerable people, but as budget cuts continue to impact support agencies they are in need of business expertise to help them cultivate new funding streams.

The support of experienced marketers and business strategists would not only boost their teams’ productivity, but set up the systems needed for their work to really shine.

As well as overall business and marketing support, they would appreciate small bits of advice, such as how to set up a media list or guidance on year-end fundraising campaign ideas.

Katie said, “We believe fully in the quality of the services we provide to vulnerable people in London and with the added knowledge and energy of a partnership with other professionals, this quality can be translated effectively to achieve our business goals and expand our services for those who need it most.”

Read more about The Marketing Society's Marketing for Good initiative and more from Pimp My Cause in our Clubhouse.