EduSpots' Big Give Appeal

ABOUT US

EduSpots exists to connect, train, and equip local volunteers who drive community-led change through education spaces called ‘Spots’. Currently, we have more than 250 volunteers and we are actively recruiting more!

The Spots are led and owned by community committees comprising local educational leaders, traditional leaders, political leaders, teachers, students, and parents. These committees build local volunteer teams who we connect centrally via WhatsApp, national and regional conferences, and our leadership programmes.

We are a UK registered charity and a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) in Ghana We are proud of our innovative low-cost and community-led model for driving greater educational equity in rural Ghana and Kenya.

New year, new target

In 2021, our first year of participating in the Big Give, we set our target at £2,500 and we were delighted to receive online donations of £3,935 (157%) from 24 donations

This year, with a better understanding of how the Big Give works and ideas for a more strategic approach, we set our fundraising target at an ambitious £10,000. Although this was a huge leap from the previous year, we felt confident that we could do it!

We put together a core team for the challenge This included our Founder, Cat, our part-time Head of Partnerships, Farida, and our part-time Fundraising Manager, Rebecca However, there was so much excitement around the Big Give within our network, that our staff team and volunteers also contributed ideas and content for the week which was a huge help!

Campaign Focus

UNESCO estimated that, in Ghana, around 222,000 females and 214,000 males aged 15 to 24 were illiterate in 2018. We are determined to change this, so chose to focus on our literacy for the 2022 Christmas Challenge

In recent years, we have developed a strong literacy programme, EduLit, and encourage our volunteers - most of whom are trained teachers - to lead EduLit clubs at their Spots so this programme can be delivered Currently, more than 40 of our 250 volunteers are involved in our EduLit programme, leading EduLit clubs in 15 of our communities.

We want to see our literacy programme grow, so we can support more Ghanaians to improve their literacy skills To do this, we need to raise funds so we can provide further training and mentoring, and strengthen our existing model of monthly literacy-based challenges

With the funds raised, we will develop and deliver physical EduLit boxes to our communities with context-specific literacy resources, as well as develop an online resource hub, and purchase much requested books by African authors The impact will be huge!

But why?

Literacy is so important for the following reasons:

Improves the development of the wider community

Empowers women and girls

Impacts economic growth beyond the local community

Lifts individuals out of poverty

Books are severely lacking in most government schools in rural Ghana, with fiction books almost non-existent EduSpots has worked hard to place more than 100,000 reclaimed and donated books in our community learning spaces, but we continue to be desperately short of African fiction books for all ages. These are not often donated and have to be purchased - but we struggle to secure funding for this

At EduSpots, 2022 was our 'Year of Books' and we launched a campaign, 'Bringing Africa to the Bookshelf' Studies and our own direct observations of library users and analysis of book loaning, shows that African fiction books are more sought after than western books by a considerable margin. The importance of identifying with stories and characters in books, in the development of literacy skills and to inspire reading is well documented, and we know in our own Spots that, when young people can identify with characters and experiences that the can relate to, this increases their interest, understanding and engagement in reading

With all this in mind, it felt like a good fit for us to center the Big Give Christmas Challenge around this.

campaign aims

Focusing the Christmas Challenge around our EduLit programme, we defined our campaign objectives as follows:

01. Enhance training for volunteers

To build the capacity of our committed volunteers so they can lead EduLit clubs, growing their own skills in literacy development and leadership more widely.

02. Development of key literacy skills

To strengthen the literacy skills of young people (especially JHS students targeted by EduLit clubs), enabling them to grow their skills in creativity, critical thinking and teamwork, whilst also advancing their literacy abilities and wider engagement in reading.

03. Provide valuable literacy resources

To support our volunteers and students with further literacy resources, including physical EduLit boxes with context-specific literacy resources, alongside creating a literacy learning hub on our website

04. Bring Africa to the bookshelf

To provide the users of the Spots with more books that reflect their culture and context, investing in fiction and non-fiction books by African authors for all ages, alongside much requested local textbooks meeting current syllabus needs.

05. Supercharge our EduLit Clubs

To continue to develop an impactful and sustainable model for EduLit clubs through a clear handbook, monthly literacy challenges and an annual literacy festival

Communications

Creating a powerful communication plan was important to us

We focused on good communications that:

Engaged our volunteer network

Enthused our email newsletter subscribers

Lit up our social media platforms

Focused on storytelling at the heart

Knowing that effective and emotive narrative is one of the most important tools in our fundraising toolkit, we asked our volunteers to share stories of their experiences with EduSpots so we could share this across the week

It soon became clear to us that videos were most engaging for our audience We chose to post videos in the evening because we felt that people would have more time to watch long-form content in the evenings.

Throughout the campaign, we aimed to build a connection with our audience If we could encourage our supporters to feel strongly about EduSpots and our EduLit programme, they would want to do something to address it Trust and transparency were key pillars of our narrative

Our Big Give team needed an easy way to connect with one another remotely We formed a WhatsApp group specifically for the Big Give so that we could bounce ideas around quickly and easily. Each morning, we shared plans for the day and talked about the content that would appear on social media We shared our excitement as donations rolled in This really helped with motivation!

With a good number of subscribers to our newsletters, we knew that emails would form part of our communication strategy We sent a total of seven emails to our supporters in relation to the Big Give Two of these emails were sent in advance of the seven-day campaign, three were sent during the Challenge, and two were sent afterwards. The emails were sent over a six-week period

Social Media

We intended to plan all our content in advance but, with a big ambition of posting across most of our platforms three times a day (morning, afternoon, and evening), the lack of time in the lead up to the Christmas Challenge meant that we created content ‘ on the go ’ rather than in advance To some extent, this worked better because it meant we could react to what was working well and tailor our graphics to match the pace of the campaign. Where possible, all our posts linked straight to our donation page on the Big Give website (generally using our bitly link)

We wanted to frame the impact of a single donation in easy to understand terms So, we kicked off the campaign by sharing contextualised standard donation amounts, giving the donor assurance that their money would be spent meaningfully For example, £5 buys a local textbook, or £100 would buy an entire shelf of books by African authors We wanted our supporters to know exactly what impact their donation would have.

As we progressed through the week, we shared updates on social media about how we were getting on, and how long we had left to reach our target We were keen to ensure that we mentioned that the match funds would be lost completely if we were not able to raise £10K

Instagram

Whilst we are not sure if any of our donations derived as a direct result of our Instagram posts, we loved being able to share more of our work on this platform and really felt the community engagement.

Duringthecampaignweek,weshared21posts,65stories,9reels,and2videos onInstagram!Wereached840accounts,anincreaseof72.1%comparedtothe previous week A total of 101 accounts engaged with us, an incredible 905% increase compared to the previous week Throughout the week, 14 people followedusandonepersonunfollowedus,sooverallgrowthof13people!

It was important for us to maintain a strong presence on LinkedIn throughout the Christmas Challenge as we know that many of our supporters are active on this platform. We used LinkedIn to share stories of our incredible volunteers, and the impact that they're making We're confident that LinkedIn derived a good chunk of our donations, likely a result of our supporters reposting our content

Nimatu's Story

Throughout the Christmas Challenge, we shared stories of the amazing individuals who volunteer for EduSpots Towards the end of the campaign, EduSpots Founder, Cat, shared the amazing story of Nimatu AbdulRahman, a remarkable individual, mum, nurse and EduSpots Catalyst!

"I met Nimatu when I was working at the incredible African Science Academy run by the African Gifted Foundation - a school for gifted young female maths and physics students who complete A-levels in one year ahead of applying for STEM-related subjects at university.

Seeing the huge potential of these young women to work with young learners in their home communities as mentors and role models, EduSpots set up a grants partnership programme to give their incredibly inspiring young gifted female STEM students the opportunity to set up a Spot in their home community

Nimatu's huge passion for opening up educational opportunities for other young students in her home community of Savelugu was evident from the start, and she was awarded just a £500 grant to create a Spot within the Junior High School she had attended

Nimatu was training as a nurse, and was also a mum to daughter Ramzia, but set her heart open ensuring that the Spot was well-resourced and well-used by students in the school and the wider community

Nimatu enlisted a local volunteer team and together they run regular EduLit challenges, alongside a whole host of locally designed educational initiatives such as a community-wide spelling bee competition, and leadership of a 'STEM for a Sustainable Future' holiday camp

Nimatu enrolled on our CLEd (Community Leadership in Education Programme), and she decided to create a mobile library initiative, enabling books at her Spot and further local text books and African book to be shared on rotation through setting up visits to schools across the local area.

"I have realised that before change occurs you must take action. EduSpots has given me the confidence and skills to take action even if nobody else does." Today, Nimatu is an EduSpots Peer Mentor, supporting four other CLEd Catalysts on their leadership journeys.

Nimatu is why EduSpots exists: to enable passionate individuals to bring local teams together create the changes they want to see for their communities, whilst growing themselves in the process

Little extras

Our Christmas Challenge hashtag

We circulated a questionnaire to our staff team in advance of the Big Give to ask for their thoughts on a number of things, including a suitable hashtag The preferred hashtag was #OurCollectiveChristmas, so we used this throughout the campaign, alongside the ‘official’ Big Give hashtag, #ChristmasChallenge22

QR code

After reading the Big Give Marketing Guide (thank you for creating such a helpful document!), we signed up to bitlycom to create a shortened URL for our Big Give platform, and to generate a QR code that would link the viewer directly to our Christmas Challenge donation page This was free.

QR codes enable quick and simple donations so we thought this would encourage more people to donate We created posters that could be shared at events, or in schools

Doubling up

One of our Trustees committed to doubling up any donations received from his personal network, up to a maximum of £500. He posted to his LinkedIn page to encourage colleagues and acquaintances to donate, enticing them with the prospect that their donation would be doubled twice, creating 3x the impact So, a donation of £10 would result in a £30 donation to EduSpots, plus Gift Aid, at no extra cost to them We were incredibly grateful for the generosity of his network, resulting in the full £500 being donated to us

We found that reaching out to our friends and family was the most effective route to securing donations throughout the campaign, especially where this created a chain reaction and the link was shared further

We created a few graphics that our staff team and volunteers could forward to friends and family

Festive event in London

We were able to secure a lovely venue in central London to hold a mulled wine and mince pies evening on the Saturday during the campaign week. We asked that attendees make a minimum donation of £20, paid directly to the Big Give website On reviewing the donations, we noted that several attendees generously donated more which was wonderful!

Book competition

We were delighted that two publishing companies agreed to donate reading books to us for our Big Give campaign.

The books were all written by Ghanaian authors! Yaa Gyasi, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Peace Adzo Medie, and Taiye Selasi

Whilst we had planned to introduce the book competition at the beginning of the week, we ran our social media very organically, based on what was working well and what we felt would benefit from being shared next This resulted in our post introducing the book competition being delayed to later in the week and unfortunately, the book competition did not get the traction that we hoped for

Why donate?

We wanted people to feel that their donations would go to a good cause, so, in our email communications, we shared five reasons our supporters should make a donation to EduSpots. Here are the five reasons:

01. Our model is volunteer driven

Our 250+ Spot volunteers contribute thousands of hours annually, and many of our core UK staff members are also volunteers, adding significant value to the organisation with our admin costs at an astonishing 12%

02. We are sustained at a local level

This year (2022), over £10,000 has been raised by Spots at a local level to sustain their activities locally and ensure ongoing Spot maintenance.

03. Our impact has sustained over time

Spots such as Abofour and Akumadan, which were founded over six years ago, continue to advance their ambitions and activities

04. We have high standards

Our training receives outstanding feedback from volunteers, and it is creative, collaborative, and based on evidence of what works

05. Our work is transformative

You only need to read a few of the stories we share to see the impact our volunteers are having They understand the needs of their communities, and are empowered to lead community-centered change.

The end result

We reached our target shortly before the deadline!

Our highest donation was £1,000, whilst our average donation amounted to £57 We are so grateful to those who supported us throughout the campaign - both those who supported us financially through donating funds, and those who supported us by sharing our resources

Grand Total

£11,835

pledge funds

£2,500

Champion funds

£2,500

Thankyoutoourgenerouspledger,andTheFriendsofTheReedFoundation whokindlysupporteduswithchampionfunds

Target £10,000 donations

£5,678

Gift Aid £1,157

Total raised £10,678

Spending the funds

Reaching our target means that we can invest the funds in enhancing our literacy programme, EduLit We will be spending the £10,000 in a way which we feel will have the biggest impact for our communities Here's how:

01. EduLit boxes

We will develop our existing EduLit literacy programme which currently supports over 40 local volunteers, in leading EduLit clubs in 15 communities. Fifteen Spots will be equipped with rich Edulit boxes which are boxes with context-specific literacy resources This will help to strengthen the literacy skills of young people, enabling them to grow their skills in creativity, critical thinking and teamwork, whilst also advancing their literacy abilities and wider engagement in reading

02. Books by African authors

We can purchase much requested books by African authors so that the children at our Spots can relate better to what they're reading This will motivate and encourage them to develop the vital skill of reading with comprehension, and develop a deeper connection with books and reading more widely

03. Creating an inviting environment

We can purchase more bookcases to house the ever growing book collections at our Spots - being able to display the books in exciting ways draws students to these shelves Simple developments like this have a huge impact, encouraging students to visit the Spot and interact with our programmes, supporting their learning journey

04. Literacy training

To make our EduLit programme the best that it can be, we want to provide further training and mentoring to our volunteers, and strengthen our existing model of monthly challenges We can do this now!

We were so excited by the Supporters' Choice Award as we are fortunate to have a large community of volunteers and felt confident we could get them on board! Although we didn't win the Award last year, our network had been amazing at getting engaged so we knew we could do it again!

We are so pleased that the hard work paid off as we were granted the Supporters' Choice Award following the campaign, winning an additional £1,000 Thank you to each and every person who talked about us on social media, and shared why they thought EduSpots should win! In particular, a huge thank you to one of our volunteers, Adam, who won the judges over with his post.

Our reflections

Similar to last year, we learnt so much through participating in the Big Give Looking back on the Christmas Challenge 2022, our reflections are as follows:

01. Bright and colourful is fun!

We created a new colour scheme for our Instagram feed especially for the Big Give! We chose bold, bright colours that reflect our ethos that learning should be fun We were delighted with how colourful our feed looked during the campaign week, and have been trying to keep up with it since!

02. Our network loved getting involved

The Big Give was an excellent way to get our network involved with fundraising. Our staff team really rallied behind the campaign, and our volunteers were so excited to be part of it It was great for teambuilding!

03. People loved our videos

Throughout the week, we shared stories of our volunteers via video content. The videos were really successful at engaging our audience, and a great way to showcase the wonderful work that we do

04. Investing time is important

We invested a lot of time into being visible during the campaign week, showing up on our various social media channels, as well as reaching out to our networks through email communications and WhatsApp messages

05. People believe in our vision

Exceeding our target of £10,000 reminded us that people believe in the transformative work that we are doing, and feel confident investing in our charity because they can see the huge impact that their donations have

Looking ahead

We hope the Big Give Christmas Challenge becomes an annual event in our fundraising calendar Here are some of our reflections from 2022 which we will take through to future campaigns in 2023 and beyond:

01. Plan earlier

Next year, we will start the planning process earlier At the application stage, we will engage our staff team and volunteers by starting the conversations around our campaign theme for 2023

02. Build momentum within our network

Encouraging our staff and volunteers to reach out to their networks for donations seemed to be the most effective way to secure donations Next year, we would focus on this more heavily in the lead up to the campaign to ensure our network is engaged and excited to share our campaign.

03. Plan more video content

We found that our video content was really well received! Next year, we would film a series of shorter videos suitable for social media, instead of condensing longer clips. Perhaps we might delve into the world of TikTok!

04. Aim for more pledges

With two years under our belt, we are feeling more confident in how the Big Give works, and how to get the most from it. In the future, we would like to secure pledge funds from several existing supporters

05. Perfect our follow up

36 of our 99 Big Give donors opted-in to receive communications from EduSpots In the future, we would like to develop our post-campaign communications, ensuring that our supporters have the best possible donor journey and remain engaged with our work

A selection of the social media graphics that we shared with our audience at the end of thecampaign!