‘Look after your local'

St Barnabas Hospice already had a community willing to support with one-off gifts. What they needed was a deeper relationship with these supporters and a dependable income stream at a time of growing pressure for hospice funding. So they came to us to develop a regular giving proposition and campaign.

Our research found that supporters’ connection to their local hospice ran deep, with many people having personal experiences of its care. This is Lincolnshire’s local hospice, and people take care of the local places that mean something special.

That truth became our campaign: Look after your local.

The proposition positioned the hospice alongside the places at the heart of a community – like a café, library or pub. It made regular giving feel like a natural act of looking after a place that would leave a huge gap if it disappeared.

We gave regular supporters a new name: Friends. Because friends look after each other.

Drawing on the lived experiences of St Barnabas’ clinical team and the families they care for, we developed an acquisition DM pack, welcome pack and exclusive pin badge for Friends to wear with pride. A toolkit of ready-to-use assets and a dedicated supporter journey helped bring the idea to life across every touchpoint.

In its first month alone, the campaign recruited 101 new Friends, with an average monthly gift of just under £14. With the campaign still running, that number has grown to 135 Friends, generating around £21,000 in annual giving.

The campaign also inspired additional generosity, including gifts of £10,000 and £1,000, alongside interest from multiple supporters in leaving a legacy gift.

Beyond the numbers, the campaign helped bring the hospice and its supporters closer together. People sent personal messages of thanks to Rowan, an Advanced Clinical Practitioner at St Barnabas who was signatory for our DM packs. And Rowan returned the kindness with thank-you calls and video messages to new Friends.

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