Case Study: Creating an appeal campaign ‘en français’
Meet the Client
YWCA Québec promotes the well-being, safety, and development of the full potential of all women and girls. Located in Quebec City, YWCA Québec offers a place of belonging and development for women and girls and provides shelter and comfort to women.
Known primarily for their training courses and sporting activities (e.g. athletic classes, and swimming pools), YWCA Québec also provides emergency and transitional accommodations for women and their children living in vulnerable situations, without financial resources, without adequate social networks or without a place to sleep. Many of the women who seek shelter are fleeing domestic violence.
The Client’s Challenge
At the end of October 2021, the executive director of the YWCA Québec Foundation contacted us to write, design and produce a printed holiday appeal letter and supporting digital campaign material. The organization had never before solicited holiday donations in this manner and they were excited to be entering this fundraising space.
It was already late in the season and the project needed to go from start to finish in just three weeks in order to be out by Giving Tuesday (the biggest giving day of the year). And, being in Quebec, the copy needed to be entirely in French.
Our Solution
As a copywriting agency that specializes in working with non-profit organizations, writing and producing compelling fundraising appeal letters is an essential part of our offerings. But until this phone call, we had never written copy in a language other than English. Not to be deterred, we used the power of our professional network to find a French language writer at the top of their field. Within two business days, we had secured a ‘rédactrice’ (copywriter) whose writing style and past experience fit this specific project.
We should note that while this was our first French language project, our founder and content strategist, Deborah Evans, can read and speak the language fluently. This skill made a profound difference in our final product as she guided the writer, provided constructive feedback on the draft and conversed with YWCA Québec staff in their first language, when needed.
The heartfelt letter we wrote pulled on heartstrings, giving the audience a glimpse into the lives of some of the women who depend on their services and the urgency of their need for donations. The client was thrilled with the first copy draft and we quickly moved to production.
If we are being honest, the first round of the letter in design fell flat. But we went back to the drawing board and knocked it out of the park with our second attempt. With one problem — fitting the draft copy into two pages was a tight squeeze. We ruthlessly chopped out a quarter of the copy without losing the essence of the message, and added new calls to action to draw even greater attention to the organization’s urgent need.
With the letter and tear-off reply card polished and ready to print, we added key touches and calls to action on both the outgoing and reply envelopes.
The next phase was to prepare three much shorter email versions of the letter. These e-blasts, each of which was no more than 200 words and tied back to the theme and sentiments of the original letter, acted as a reminder to donors of the urgent need for their support. The emails were sent out on Giving Tuesday (to build brand presence), in mid-December (as a reminder that it was not too late to give a gift), and in the final days of the year (as a reminder that donations get a 2021 tax receipt).
Testimonial
“I am thankful for Luminate Communications’ professionalism and agility in helping us with our Christmas Campaign. Deborah and her team took the time to understand who we are as a non-profit and gave us a few amazing options to communicate with our donors. Luminate wrote our appeal letter, our mass e-mails and developed the design for the campaign. We saw an immediate positive response from our community and as a result more than tripled our fundraising efforts. I wholeheartedly recommend Luminate Communications to everyone who wants to meaningfully reach out to their donors.”
Marie-Astrid Dubant
Executive Director, YWCA Québec Foundation