Day for Change | Fundraising Campaign Transformation
Background
UNICEF UK wanted to reinvent Day for Change, one of its longest-running fundraising campaigns, after more than 25 years. While the campaign had built strong awareness in schools, the charity recognised an opportunity to modernise the proposition, increase fundraising income and expand participation beyond the classroom.
The ambition was to transform Day for Change into a more inclusive community fundraising campaign, engaging schools alongside families, workplaces, faith groups and local communities.
The Challenge
The existing campaign centred on encouraging school children to do something different for a day while learning about UNICEF's work.
Although the educational message remained important, the fundraising proposition had become too complex to engage wider audiences. The challenge was to create a simpler, more compelling campaign that would increase participation, strengthen supporter engagement and improve fundraising performance without losing the campaign's educational value.
The Creative Strategy
We began by stripping the proposition back to its simplest and most powerful idea.
Rather than asking people to organise activities, we encouraged them to collect and donate their loose change. A small behavioural shift that made the campaign easier to understand, easier to join and far easier to share.
To help the campaign stand out, we moved away from UNICEF's traditional photography-led marketing and developed a bold illustrated creative style that immediately differentiated Day for Change from the charity's wider communications. Bright colours, playful visuals and accessible messaging created a distinctive campaign identity while educational content remained woven throughout, connecting every fundraising activity back to UNICEF's work around the world.
Alongside the creative, we developed the campaign strategy, supporter journey and integrated communications plan, ensuring every stage of the participant experience, from recruitment through to fundraising and stewardship, worked together to maximise engagement.
The campaign launched with a complete suite of fundraising, educational and marketing assets, including school resources, fundraising packs, digital campaigns, social media content, email communications and participant materials.
Impact
The refreshed Day for Change campaign dramatically improved fundraising performance while successfully broadening its appeal beyond schools.
Fundraising income increased from £130,000 to £445,000 (including Aid Match).
Conversion rates rose from 20% to 50%.
The campaign achieved these results with 1,400 participants, compared with 2,000 previously, demonstrating a significant increase in fundraising effectiveness.
By simplifying the proposition, strengthening the supporter journey and introducing a distinctive creative identity, UNICEF UK transformed an established fundraising product into a more engaging and higher-performing campaign.