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'Phenomenal' success of apartnership in humanity

Regional newspaper appeals on behalf of the United Nations Children’s Fund raised about £350,000 in three weeks to ease suffering in flood-ravaged Mozambique.

Unicef regional officer Edward Carwardine called the results “absolutely phenomenal”.

He told HoldtheFrontPage that £261,200 came from appeals in regional dailies, with the rest coming from readers of weekly papers.

The Belfast Telegraph appeal was by far the most successful, netting £160,700.

“That brought in just under £17,000 on the first day alone. It took our Northern Ireland officer about two-and-a-half hours to open her mail on the following morning.”

Reporter Claire McGahan, who covered the Telegraph’s appeal stories, said the paper usually raised between £50,000 and £100,000 a year for a chosen charity.

“To see this figure surpassed so quickly just shows how touched the people in Northern Ireland were by what we were saying.”

The Western Morning News raised the second-highest amount, £31,500, and the Lancashire Evening Telegraph’s appeal brought in £27,000.

The three titles were among eight major regional dailies which set up “partner appeals” with Unicef. Others ran appeals on a smaller basis and many weeklies published Unicef letters to the editor.

Both methods have proved extremely cost-effective for the charity – requiring only a letter and postage – and enormously successful. For papers involved in the partner appeals, the benefits have been a stream of heart-rending, up-to-date copy and a daily total of the amount raised by their own readers.

“We started with the partner appeal with key dailies during the Kosovo crisis and noticed that the response was enormous,” said Mr Carwardine.

“What we try to do is make it as easy as possible for the newspapers, so we supply them with daily copy that they can run as it is or tweak as they see fit.

“We can supply digital photos, usually direct from out field offices, and we can put in case studies as we receive them – in Mozambique, we were getting stories of kids coming in suffering from malnutrition or cholera, and being interviewed by our field staff. So it puts the human element into the appeal again.

“And because of new technology, this stuff can be on a sub’s desk within 24 hours of it being picked up in the field.

“We try to provide something for them every day for the first week or two of a major appeal and, because we have regional officers who manage the partnerships, all the donations go through to our regional staff, so they can do a daily tally of what’s being raised by each newspaper.

“We also offer the option for people to get involved in local fund-raising and produce a fund-raising pack that people can ask for through their newspaper, and we can feed the results back to the newspaper.

“The other element is that we like to provide feedback as well. Once the appeal is over, we start getting reports through from our field officer on the long-term impact of the money raised, and we will feed those stories to the paper so that they can tell their readers ‘this is how your money was put to use’.

“We see ourselves as being a highly professional organisation and are keen to find out what the needs of newspapers are and make sure our efforts match those needs as much as possible.”

He added: “I think what we’ve recognised for the last couple of years is that when there’s a big emergency on the television, people really want to respond in their community, and regional newspapers are an excellent vehicle for giving people the opportunity to respond.”

Mr Carwardine can be contacted on 01424 220956 or e-mailed by clicking here.

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