Generating Generosity: How Great Branding Inspires People to Give
About a third of people asked, said content on social media would prompt them to make a donation (https://www.wrsinsurance.co.uk/news/92-of-brits-plan-to-match-or-increase-charitable-giving-this-christmas/)
As we approach the closing months of 2025, we’re fast approaching crunch-time for business looking to boost sales, and charities looking to raise all-important donations ahead of the next calendar year.
There are all sorts of strategies out there for maximising sales (not all of them are good or honest!), but there’s a lot less advice out there for maximising financial support for charities. So the question is, how can we generate generosity?
At Bara Studio we believe that while the conditions are tough right now and many charities are struggling due to decreased giving (among a hundred other things), there is reason to be hopeful!
The good news is that people still want to give.
The bad news is that lots of charities are accidentally making it hard for them to do so. Let’s fix that.
When a charity’s message is muddled, its website confusing, or its design out of date, even the most generous supporter can hesitate. In tough times, generosity needs clarity, confidence and trust. And these are all things your brand can either build or block.
Generosity Can Be Designed
Statistics show that the festive season brings with it an increased feeling of generosity as well as more donations in real terms.
While much of this can be put down to sentimentality, routine or some other intangible, there are also many steps organisations can take to help generate generosity.
As always, a personal connection to a charitable cause is the number one motivating factor for one-off donations at this time of year, but a significant amount of people are being impacted by social media campaigns and email marketing (roughly a third of people responding to a survey by WRS Insurance).
And with a huge increase in digital giving, using mobile payments and methods like Apple Pay, it’s more important than ever that we have to take care of the whole process: from first impression to ‘make payment’ buttons.
We all know that you need to be findable to be fundable, so let’s walk through our four step CARE framework for encouraging people to make donations at this special time of year. CARE stands for Clarity, Accessibility, Repetition and Emotion.
1. Clarity increases confidence
If people don’t understand what you do or how to help, they won’t act.
It’s amazing how many charities overcomplicate their messaging at Christmas, spilling lots of (digital and actual) ink on impact, insider-jargon and long lists of all the good things they’re involved in, hoping it will convince people to donate time or money to their cause. It just doesn’t work.
This is where our design and messaging needs to work together to promote a single key idea, with just a few memorable soundbites supporting your campaigns.
We don’t want people to have to think, so make it as easy as possible. Have your content answer these questions:
Which big problem are we solving together?
What difference will support make?
Why is your organisation well-positioned to steward that gift?
Combining clarity of message with a strong design will result in much more confidence from your audience, and first-time viewers. We’re not saying you need to splash thousands of pounds on design, but a professional and consistent visual campaign will increase trust and position you as a pair of safe-hands.
2. Accessibility Generates Inclusion
Allow us to stress this point: things get crowded at Christmas. And we’re not just talking about the markets (just the thought is making me feel anxious).
People’s social media feeds, letterboxes and email browsers will be absolutely full to the brim in the coming weeks and I can guarantee you that several charities will make the following two mistakes:
Poor colour contrast and design choices making core text hard to read
Confusing, multi-step donation processes with technical glitches on their websites
When we fail accessibility standards, we isolate those who may be hard of sight or not as technology-confident, and we limit our potential impact.
Don’t forget to use good colour contrast (you can check, here: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/) and ‘mystery shop’ your own donation processes to make sure your URLs, buttons, sign ups and forms are working and using as few steps as possible.
If I had a penny for every time I heard that someone was unable to make a donation because the website wasn’t working I could…
…probably make an average sized donation.
You get the point.
3. Repetition Generates Revenue
People trust brands that show up the same way everywhere.
In this way, brands are very much like people. We like consistency, it makes us feel at ease and increases the all-important know, like and trust factors.
So instead of writing each piece of content from scratch, work as hard as possible to reuse those core messages and soundbites we mentioned earlier. Use a small batch of campaign imagery, and definitely point people to the same landing page!
It’s also important to give special consideration to your campaign cadence over these next few weeks. If you’re aiming for the big give (https://biggive.org/christmas-challenge/) on December 2nd, or a final push on Friday 19th (a date pipped to be the most generous, according to https://www.charitytoday.co.uk/godonate-reveals-the-top-five-days-for-christmas-fundraising/), you can use the whisper, tease, shout method to ramp up your comms:
Whisper - one post, per week, when you’re 2 months out
Tease - one post every two days, when you’re 1 month out
Shout - one post every day when it’s the week before, and posting multiple times on the day when it arrives.
4. Emotion Generates Action
Facts inform; stories move.
It goes without saying that the key to a good John Lewis Christmas advert, I mean, a good charitable campaign, is a compelling story.
We’ll always encourage our charity clients to nominate either one key story (and sometimes a key character), or if that won’t work, to consider a key theme which enables the sharing of multiple stories.
Our human brains are wired for stories, we remember them better and are more moved by stories. You should lead with these before backing them up with relevant statistics and processes.
This means you’ll need to do some of the heavy lifting prior to the campaign: collecting stories, testimonials, photos and video. The more of this you can produce, the more effective your campaigns will be.
Gratitude Fuels Generosity
“It’s better to give than to receive.”
Now that we’ve designed a system to increase generosity in our campaigns, it’s time to speak to the culture of your organisation as you approach this important time of year.
While we would love for our audiences to be extra generous this year, one of the best ways we can encourage this is to start with our own generosity.
This may sound absurd. After all, if you’re reading this as part of a charity, giving is literally what you do. But hear me out.
Generous brands don’t just ask for support; they demonstrate it. Thankfulness is contagious. When people feel seen, appreciated and valued, they give again. Not because they have to, but because they want to.
The idea here is that charities, churches and non-profits can model generosity throughout the year. This makes ‘asking’ much more natural, because your audience feel appreciated rather than taken advantage of.
How do you encourage and inspire your audience regularly through your content? Do you give more than you ask?
How good are you at saying thank you? Cold, automated ‘thank you for your donation’ emails, or tax-deductible invoices are one thing - but video messages, voice notes, cards or thoughtful thank-yous are a whole other things which can be a game changer.
How are you demonstrating gratitude internally? If culture eats strategy for breakfast, then make sure you treat your team well and promote generosity and gratitude internally, so that it becomes infectious in your comms.
Make your own luck
It’s definitely a special time of year, and people will give more money than usual for lots of different reasons, but we want you to go out there and make your own luck, instead of just hoping for the best.
The CARE framework will help you generate more generosity. With the right strategy, clear messaging and simple design, you can make giving easy and joyful. Because when your brand communicates confidently, people give freely.
We help charities and churches design brands that inspire generosity. If that’s what you need right now, we’d love to chat.
