Personal stories played a key role in the success of a hospital charity’s largest appeal to date, according to its fundraising director.
In an interview on the Third Sector Podcast, Paul Watkins described how Leeds Hospitals Charity responded to an opportunity to launch a £6.8m fundraising appeal to build a new motor neurone disease care centre at Seacroft Hospital in Leeds.
The chance arose when the former England rugby league player Rob Burrow received care at the hospital, after being diagnosed with MND in December 2019. The charity’s largest previous appeal was £1.2m.
Watkins highlighted the time-sensitive nature of the Rob Burrow Centre for MND Appeal, spearheaded by Burrow and supported by fellow rugby professionals including Ed Slater and the late Doddie Weir, both of whom had also been diagnosed with MND and “made themselves available at the time of their greatest vulnerability”.
“Let’s not forget that half of people with MND will not live beyond two years. So this was our burning platform. Let’s get this done. And it was something that the entire community got behind,” Watkins said.
Burrow died on 2 June, a day before the ground-breaking ceremony for the new centre took place.
More than 17,000 individual donors have contributed to the three-year appeal, which has been bolstered by the involvement of the wider MND community.
Watkins said the average amount donated was “around £35”. He added that 95 per cent of the appeal’s supporters were new to Leeds Hospitals Charity and said 10 per cent had gone on to support the charity’s wider work.
“Many of them gave not just once but three times to the appeal. And I think that was as the stories developed, because people were willing to share their personal stories, it captured people’s imagination and they wanted to do something,” he continued.
“We were able to pivot back to those stories and make this about real people. It wasn’t about some building in the future. This was about people living with this condition now.”
Watkins added that the strength of the individual giving stream had come as a surprise: “Where I thought the income was going to come from certainly hasn’t transpired: those big donations, the big corporate gifts. This was very much driven from a community perspective.
“At the heart of every good fundraiser is storytelling, and every good appeal has those stories that resonate.”
Listen to the full interview with Watkins on the Third Sector Podcast.