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The Hospice of St Francis

The
Brief

The Hospice of St Francis Christmas Fundraising Appeal

The Hospice of St Francis is a charity that helps 2,000 local people and their families in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Their free care for people managing or those recovering from serious illness has many forms; care at the Hospice and their Health and Wellbeing Centre, which offers courses, workshops, therapies and a clinic.

Like many charities, The Hospice of St Francis had a difficult 2020. Covid continues to make the difficult job of fundraising even trickier and the fundraising team at the Hospice of St Francis came to us with a brief to make a short film, which would directly target their existing Corporate Partner Network. They wanted to appeal for donations in the build up to the Christmas period.

As it was a fundraising activity, we wanted to keep the budget as shoestring as possible without it compromising the final video for their Christmas corporate appeal.

The Hospice of St Francis

The
Solution

As part of the Hospice of St Francis’ Corporate Partner Network ourselves, we donated our time, equipment and video production studio, and pulled in favours from other local individuals to produce a film that could be turned around both quickly and without cost to the Hospice.

A talking head video was agreed upon as the best means to achieve this goal and we crafted a script to ensure that it felt true to the Hospice of St Francis, and distinct from other traditional charity appeals. That guaranteed the video had a personable touch and would resonate with the Corporate Partner Network.

Talking head videos involve a person talking to the camera – not necessarily directly, often facing an off camera presenter – in an interview-style presentation or as an appeal. These are often made more engaging with scripting, cutaways, depth of field, multiple camera angles, camera panning and in some instances compelling backdrops (or those that focus the attention on the presenter). This worked perfectly for the limited budget and tight turnaround.

The Hospice of St Francis

The
Result

The result was a film we were all proud to have worked on and the Hospice team measured an uplift in 2020 Christmas donations compared to previous years.

Bringing the video into the studio meant we had more control over the environment – from acoustics to backdrop, on-hand equipment and ensuring a comfortable, relaxed space for those talking on camera, which is never as easy as it seams. Claire continued to tell us, “We got such great feedback from people, our CEO loved it, our staff loved it, the Corporate Partners said it was great. And we definitely did have a lot of Christmas donations come in.”

The talking heads video took into consideration and appealed to the Corporate Partners Network with a personable approach – stepping away from a simple textual or graphic email and communication, by putting someone directly in front of the camera to appeal for support for fundraising.

“It was seamless and easy. We always knew Chuffed had a really good plan and that it was achievable. Although we gave them a very, very tight timeline we were never in any doubt that Chuffed would get the job done on time within budget and on brief.”
Claire Larkin
Corporate Partnerships Manager