Rachel Kirby-Rider talks to Jenny Ramage about how Samaritans is bringing its image and fundraising into a new era

Samaritans has just refreshed its branding and launched a new advertising campaign. What was the thinking behind this?

As part of our corporate strategy, we were tasked with reaching more people. In order to do that we needed to have a clearer identity as an organisation. In the past we haven’t been very good at articulating who we are and what benefit people get out of the service, so we’ve made the look clearer and put our key messages in plain English. We’re trying to bring the uniqueness and human identity of our organisation through, and make our image a little less sterile, because that’s not who we are.

So Samaritans had an image problem?

Yes. We used to be a bit like a secret society, tucked away and never talked about. We are very different now, very proactive, younger and more diverse than ever before. The subjects we deal with are incredibly challenging, edgy, and now – we are the social barometer of the country. And we’re not a last resort; everyone goes through bad times and we can just help them put things into order. That old 70s image is hard to shake off, but that’s what we hope to do with our refreshed brand and new advertising campaign.

A number of charities have rebranded recently. Why is now the time to do it?

There are a huge number of charities in the marketplace at the moment and they are finding it harder to differentiate themselves. Donors want clear articulation of where their money is going and where it’s going to have the most impact and part of that is what you demonstrate through brand identity.

What impact has the recession had on the charity?

Call rates are going up, and there is more demand for our service than ever before. That’s why we need to continue to grow our funding. For many years we had been underinvesting in fundraising and were over-reliant on individual givers. Our donor base was in decline. To reverse that we invested in donor acquisition and supporter care, and created a more balanced portfolio. We restructured our corporate fundraising team and introduced a more strategic approach that was more focused on key objectives. We also teamed our major donor team up with the trust team, and they are working much better as a collective. That’s really starting to pay dividends. We’ve managed to grow income by 42 per cent in three years which is phenomenal in an economic downturn.

What else will you be investing in over the next two years?

As well as continuing the investment in corporate and major donors, we want to start working more effectively with our branches through regional fundraisers and we will be piloting that at the start of the next financial year. We’ll also be looking at the potential for growing our events fundraising, and we have a number of other corporate partnership opportunities bubbling away, particularly with transport companies and community agencies.

How does your confidentiality policy impact on your ability to put together human stories and case studies?

It’s really hard! When I started we had a group of case studies we used to wheel out time and again, primarily because we didn’t know how to approach new callers about case studies without breaching that confidentiality. But we’ve got much better at asking service users through our website, Facebook and Twitter, and we’ve managed to increase our case study database by quite a number of people. We just needed to stop being frightened of asking.

The Claire Squires tragedy shone a spotlight on in-memoriam giving. Why is it such a powerful form of fundraising?

Like a case study, it becomes very personal and makes people feel they are part of something, rather than it just being an act or gesture. Developing in-memoriam giving is definitely something we want to invest in over the next year. I think we feel more comfortable about this now than in the past, and part of that is down to Claire and the effect she had. She made people think about Samaritans differently.

What tips would you give to charities trying to raise money for a less popular or stigmatised cause?

First, you need to be clear about your proposition, be able to think strategically, look at brand association, and don’t just go for what seem to be the easy wins, because it’s so competitive. The approach we took with Network Rail was strategic and commercial, rather than CSR-based. That’s paid dividends for us. Secondly, you need to review what’s worked and what hasn’t. Pilot things, albeit in a contained manner, and don’t be frightened to disinvest if it doesn’t work. Thirdly, embrace the challenge of working for a difficult charity and persevere. Overcome those internal barriers, and focus on getting out there and talking about yourself.

Rachel Kirby-Rider is director of fundraising & communications at Samaritans.

This article first appeared in The Fundraiser magazine, Issue 21, September 2012