On the 12^th and 13^th of July, Caritas Europa had their Follow-Up Meeting on Communications and Fundraising at the CAFOD office in London.

The event brought together representatives from selected member organisations across Europe to discuss the importance of using communication as a means to facilitate and improve fundraising and to explore new links between the communication and fundraising sectors. 

This follow-up meeting which was diligently chaired by Holly Ball, Head of Fundraising and Marketing at CAFOD and Jean Marie Destrée, Head of Development at Secours Catholique-Caritas France, featured some items that were examined at Caritas Europa’s 2nd Communications Forum in 2005, in addition to introducing new topics like: legacy fundraising, data mining, different forms of charity fundraising and E-marketing.

The keynote speaker, legacy fundraising expert Richard Radcliffe FInstF Cert (UK), addressed this venture with his presentation on “Bringing Legacy Campaigns to Life”.  Richard gave attendees ideas and guidance on how to fashion a successful “Legacy Campaign” by conducting thorough research, building relationships, and coming up with effective strategies. Coinciding with his presentation were contributions by Beth Brook, Legacy Marketing Executive at CAFOD on legacy fundraising and Jean Marie Destrée on data mining, where he highlighted statistics and donor profiles in relation to data collected by Caritas France.

Day Two of the meeting was kicked-off with examples of fundraising campaign tactics presented through a few television clips by Alexandra van Nieuwenhuyzen, Head of Fundraising and Communications at “Mensen in Nood”/CORDAID-Caritas Netherlands.  Paul Vulpiani, Online Marketing and Evaluation Officer at CAFOD, also favoured attendees with a presentation on E-marketing where he explained the cost and time effective benefits of using e-mail to contact and track supporters. Representatives were given the chance to present ideas in a couple of open debates as a follow-up to items examined in the 2005 forum.  They discussed possible ways of transferring fundraising expertise to less experienced member organisations and fostering collaboration. 

Later, a contribution made by Jane Kronner, Editorial Coordinator at Caritas Internationalis, explored the advantages of the extranet for emergency communication, for instance, posting photographs and situation reports. A tour de table on media work in recent humanitarian emergencies followed the introduction on the subject by Patrick Nicholson, Head of Media Relations at CAFOD. 

The event concluded with updates from Caritas Europa, presented by Annalisa Mazzella, Advocacy and Communication Officer.

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Selected presentations

Bringing Legacy Campaigns to Life
   by Richard Radcliffe, FInstF Cert

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Feedback from participants

In general, the participants enjoyed the interactive and informal style of the meeting. 

Due to the fact that participants from both the media relations and fundraising sectors were represented, the idea was brought up of having a “two-phased” meeting next year. This type of meeting would be structured in such a way that all participants could meet for a general session and then branch off into separate workshops on Communications/Media and Fundraising, respectively. 

The group also debated the possibility of having an international conference on fundraising at the Caritas Internationalis level in order to involve worldwide members and develop common projects.
                                                          

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Distribution list - Caritas representatives attending the Communications Forum 


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