Earlier this year I decided that I wanted to run the Oxford Half Marathon on 11 October. I contacted some of the charities that had places and asked if I could run for them. The Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary very kindly said that I could have one of their places, in return for raising just £125 for them. Having raised far, far more than that for other charities, over the last ten years, I was sure there was more I could do for the charity. A good friend suggested that rather than try to raise thousands of pounds, that I could instead offer them some marketing support.

A charity is like any business. It needs to promote its services (caring for and rehoming abandoned cats, dogs, rabbits and guinea pigs, in the case of the Sanctuary). It needs to persuade its ‘clients’ (its supporters) to part with their money, by making a donation. All this means that spending money on marketing is not something that charity Trustees are keen to do. Many will try to get by doing as little marketing and spending as little money as possible. Which is probably why, when I offered a full day of Marketing Strategy, worth at least £1000, they jumped at the chance!

The day after I completed the Oxford Half Marathon (and raised £600 in donations) I sat down with Phoebe and Chris, who are responsible for doing all the marketing for the Sanctuary. I took them through the nine stage planning process that I’ve used for hundreds of small business. The same process applies to charities and by the end of the day, we’d worked out a twelve month schedule for the charity to follow, giving them a focus for each month’s campaign. One key marketing tool that we’ll be launching soon is an email newsletter. This will be a much cheaper way to keep supporters up to date with what’s happening at the Sanctuary, than printing and posting them a newsletter a couple of times a year. And since I love writing and I love cats and dogs, I offered to write the monthly newsletter for them. Phoebe and Chris were delighted by my offer and left my office at the end of the day full of ideas and inspiration.

Spending the day creating a Marketing Strategy didn’t cost me anything more than my time. Writing an email newsletter every month will only take an hour or two – time I can spare. Visiting the Sanctuary every few months, to see how they’re getting on with building the new kennels, won’t seem like work. (The only tricky bit will resisting all the cute kittens who want me to take them home.) Hopefully the end result will be increased awareness of the great work that the charity does and better financial support from a wider range of people. If you’d like to see more about what the Sanctuary does (or if you’d like to give an animal a new home) go to www.OxfordshireAnimalSanctuary.org.uk.

What could you offer to a charity that means something to you? How can you share your skills and expertise with a charity, to help them achieve their goals? How can you then talk about the work you’re doing for the charity, in your marketing?