5 May, 2015

After the phenomenal success of the MND Association’s social media campaign to engage the Care Minister, Norman Lamb, we’ve been keeping a close eye on charities’ online activities.

Missing People, the charity that searches for individuals who are missing and offers support to family and friends, has launched #MissForMay. It asks supporters to give up a much-loved treat for the month of May and be sponsored or donate the money saved to Missing People.

The beauty of this campaign is its simplicity and how well it combines the fundraising ask with the charity’s key messages. Firstly, the premise of missing your trip to the coffee shop or the after-work glass of wine is something we can all engage with. It also helps to bring home the idea of missing something (and indeed someone) for much longer, which taking part in the campaign will help to alleviate or even resolve for thousands of families across the UK.

Brilliant additions to the workings of #MissForMay are the ‘medals’ you get for making it through a treat-free week. These are widgets for your Facebook page and Twitter feeds that not only give you a feeling of reward (very important in supporter retention!) but also spread the messages of the campaign more widely. It also involves a #nominate hashtag so participants can share the self-denial and get friends to join in, again, spreading awareness of the charity and the campaign’s key issues.

The Cheat Token is a fantastic idea and allows you to indulge for a £10 text or a payment in the old fashioned Cheat Box where you pay for your sins on your desk! But for the parents amongst us our favourite fundraising tool has to be the option to #Muminate your kids on Facebook and Twitter. Genius. We may have to steal this idea for our own domestic purposes once May is over!

This campaign has real charm and is extremely well thought-through. It is relevant and appropriate for every age group and the tone is fun and encouraging. The case study on the website has been carefully chosen to have an appropriately positive tone yet a link to a blog below it gives you access to the more sombre roots of the campaign.

It’s a shame that the only information on Missing People’s homepage is on an image carousel so if you don’t hit it at the right time, you might miss it. But it’s inspired us so much that signing up may be our only option. The mid-morning pain au chocolate’s days are numbered!