How To Build Support for Mary's Meals - 2021

Mary’s Meals How to Build Support

The Theory Behind Building Support

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Contents 2 Introduction 3 The theory behind building support 3 6 7 9

Our guiding principles and characteristics Our model Key elements for growth Our key networks

11 Raising awareness 11 Communications activities 17 Grassroots engagement

23 Building relationships 23 Managing supporter relationships 29 Volunteer engagement

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How to build support

How to Build Support for Mary’s Meals Within these pages, you’ll discover a collection of best-practice support-building activities undertaken by National Affiliates and International Fundraising Groups to achieve growth.

This version is an update on the previous 2018 document of the same name written by our founder, Magnus MacFarlane Barrow, and aims to give a full picture of the current activities Mary’s Meals organisations are undertaking to grow our mission.

Mary’s Meals has changed in a myriad of ways since the last version. We have seen the number of children fed daily by Mary’s Meals grow from nearly 1.3 million in 2018 to over 2 million children in 2021. This increase has only been possible thanks to the continued innovation and dedication from our volunteers, staff and supporters in our National Affiliates and International Fundraising Groups. We have seen affiliates keep pace with the advances of the modern age and find new ways of communicating the Mary’s Meals story whilst becoming increasingly effective in building and maintaining long-lasting relationships with our generous supporters. Since the first edition of this document, Mary’s Meals Czech Republic, Poland, France, Slovakia and Hong Kong have all joined the family – bringing with them a host of fresh ideas and inspiration for the rest of the family.

Here, we aim to reflect some of the changes which have happened over the last few years and to display some of our developed thinking and related case studies. We also now provide the opportunity to delve deeper into topic areas through links to the newly created ‘Resource Hub’. This is a collection of relevant assets to inspire and help National Affiliates and International Fundraising Groups to design strategies to build support. The document itself exists digitally, making it easily accessible and the content within easily searchable.

Although there have been changes and developments in the way we do things at Mary’s Meals, the core of what we do and our values remain the same – to continue raising awareness of the mission of Mary’s Meals and building meaningful relationships with those who support us. The strength of our guiding principles and our faith ‘in the innate goodness of people’ allow us to go forward sharing the Mary’s Meals story with great confidence that it will move many people to give their skills, time, goods, money or prayer to further our mission.

I would like to thank all of those who contributed their expertise to this document, both within the National Affiliates and Mary’s Meals International (MMI), and I hope that it continues to be of use to Mary’s Meals organisations at every stage of their growth.

Calum MacFarlane-Barrow Affiliate Development Relationships Officer Introduction

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The Theory theory behind Behind building Buildingsupport Support

Our guiding principles and characteristics At the very heart of our mission is a huge confidence in the innate goodness of people and their willingness to support our compelling, urgent mission. It is this belief that allows us to maintain a successful low-cost, light-touch approach. Repeatedly, we see that many people respond with incredible generosity as soon as they learn about Mary’s Meals.

This low-cost approach is possible for Mary’s Meals because we are light-touch. By this we mean that we have a low ratio of staff to supporters and, therefore, we are limited in how often we can communicate, how closely we can support, and how much resource we can devote to each supporter. We rely on the passion and innovation of those supporters to solve local problems, meet their own challenges and create fundraising initiatives. We also rely very heavily on the contribution of unpaid volunteers who, again, cannot always be closely managed or supported by the organisation.

Our low-cost model is safeguarded by our commitment to spend at least 93% on our charitable objectives. The decisions we make should always be based on the understanding that people entrust us with their support in order for us to feed hungry children, not so Another key part of our approach is to always staff and volunteers can be more comfortable in treat supporters and potential supporters with their own lives. genuine respect. Our style is never pushy or aggressive. We do not exaggerate needs or the Therefore, while it is necessary to spend a certain benefits of our work. We simply tell it as it is, amount of money on making the organisation striving to be accurate and well-informed when work well, great care must always be taken when talking about what we do. As much as possible considering non-charitable expenditure. This we try to make friends with our supporters and is to ensure money is not spent unnecessarily create a sense of family. We never treat people or inappropriately on items such as non-essential like an object from which to extract money. We travel, office accommodation and excessive do not think of fundraising as a science, rather as salaries. a set of genuine relationships.

Ireland

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The theory behind building support

Haiti

We also recognise the worth of every donor and every gift – regardless of its size – and believe that everyone who wishes to is capable of playing a unique part in this mission.

We are not so much the prime movers in this, rather we are the ones with the responsibility to nurture and guide and facilitate all that goodness. Over and over again, we have benefited from amazing surprises: huge gifts and acts of generosity we We respect that many of our supporters choose could not have planned for, but that can often be to be part of our mission as an expression of traced back to seeds planted, sometimes several their faith and we are happy that they do so – years previously, through raising awareness and especially given our origins and name. At the building relationships. same time, we do not use Mary’s Meals as a vehicle to evangelise or promote a particular That said, this reluctance to set monetary targets ideology or political view. certainly does not mean there is no place for setting other goals and there is a need for In general, we try to keep this very simple and robust planning and budgeting. We also have a focus on giving people the opportunity to feed duty to be good stewards of all that is entrusted the next hungry child waiting for Mary’s Meals. to us. Therefore we have a huge responsibility We do not present ourselves as people who have for organisational development that ensures the answers to everything, rather that we do one excellent financial management and governance simple thing and do it very well. While we have and that tries to keep up with the growth that a grand vision, it is important we undertake this should be expected if our fundraising model is work in a spirit of humility. applied consistently and well.

We are very reluctant to create financial targets for those fundraising for Mary’s Meals (especially staff). This is because we fear it could encourage short-term thinking, a wrong attitude to potential donors and a loss of our sense of divine providence guiding our work. We do not want to make the mistake of thinking we are in control of everything or can predict every eventuality accurately or, indeed, that we are responsible for every good thing that happens.

Those of us who work on a daily basis for Mary’s Meals should recognise that our role is to support the global movement and to make supporters’ giving effective. We should understand that many of the good things that happen, including the best ideas, happen ‘out there’ amongst our supporters and volunteers, rather than in our head office or in board meetings.

Because of our vision and our desire to feed the next child, we want to grow fast, and our experience has been, so far, one of almost constant growth. A hallmark of our work, therefore, is almost constant organisational change. This is uncomfortable at times, but necessary. The systems and teams required to support an organisation that raises £100,000 every year is very different from one raising £1 million, and that is very different to one that raises £10 million. A voluntary organisation must work very differently than one with staff, and, to be effective, an organisation with two staff members needs to behave very differently to one with 20.

If we are serious about our vision and our desire to feed many more children, we must be willing to embrace organisational change. The status quo is not an option for a thriving Mary’s Meals organisation while there are still hungry children in this world.

The theory behind building support

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The Theory Behind Building Support

Our model Out of this history and experience, a model has emerged. This model supports incredible growth year after year and has allowed us to serve meals to over two million children every day just 19 years after the first Mary’s Meals were served. It is a model that is continually developing as we absorb new ideas and learn new things. But, it is already one we know works, and one that if patiently replicated in different territories, will allow us to feed many more children.

1. Raising awareness

2. Building relationships

Our efforts to build support must start with activities for raising awareness. Our experience tells us that the message of Mary’s Meals is so compelling that it is generally met with a hugely generous response when heard. Our raising awareness consists mainly of creating opportunities to tell the story and then telling it well. Raising awareness should comprise a very large part of our activities. We cannot achieve any meaningful growth unless we do this very effectively and repeatedly.

Medjugorje

We then begin relationship-building with those who have engaged with us because of our successful awareness-raising. These relationships are based on mutual respect. We try to treat each supporter as a member of our family or a friend – even if we never meet them in person. We don’t exaggerate, we are not aggressively persuasive, we are not intrusive, nor do we wish to become a cold anonymous organisation.

When we meet people who might be able to support us, our first interest should be in them as people. We should only accept their gifts in the belief that their giving and participation is for them also an opportunity to grow in peace and joy. The donation itself is secondary to our relationship and unity of purpose.

Kenya

The theory behind building support

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Key elements for growth The history of Mary’s Meals support spans over many years and many countries. A whole collection of inspirational stories about how Mary’s Meals was born and how it has grown are told in the book ‘The Shed That Fed 2 Million Children’ by Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, Mary’s Meals Founder and Chief Executive. Our aim here is not to retell these stories, but instead focus on the key elements for growth that have led us to form a distinctive style in growing our mission.

The following section outlines our key aspects for growth, drawn from years of experience and multiple examples across the global family.

Inspiring storytelling

Key networks

We know from experience that, when the story of Mary’s Meals is shared, people respond with incredible generosity. Throughout our history, we have always found innovative and creative ways to raise awareness of our work through storytelling. We have seen this through our excellent films, books, digital content, talks and presentations. Telling the story, rather than asking immediately and directly for money, has become our usual approach – one we have found to be effective and one that sits well with volunteers and staff. Our ability to communicate the mission of Mary’s Meals provokes deeply emotional and generous responses that lead many people to contribute. It is therefore imperative, as stewards of this mission, that we aim to find as many opportunities as we can to tell this story and inspire more people to join our family.

In the countries where we have seen strong growth, affiliate leaders have successfully and pro-actively engaged with key networks with whom the story of Mary’s Meals strongly resonates and inspires action. These networks include faith-based communities, schools and universities, corporates and foundations and organised groups and associations. Through awareness-raising and relationship-building activities, we have seen many individuals generously respond by offering to give their skills, time, money, goods or prayer to further our mission.

Malawi

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The theory behind building support

Ireland

Building meaningful relationships So often when people hear about Mary’s Meals for the first time, they respond with incredible generosity. To grow the grassroots movement, we have encouraged supporters to set up a regular gift so we can create budgets based on predicted income and we see this as the best possible way for most supporters to give to Mary’s Meals. We have developed a very successful campaign Sponsor a School which has become a vital part of our fundraising as it allows us to be more ambitious in our plans. This allows people to organise their own fundraising initiatives within their communities, networks, extended families, schools and parishes.

We recognise that those working in the core staff team are not necessarily the prime fundraisers, rather, if provided with right tools and support – our supporters are. Often through our grassroots effort, opportunities emerge with major donors that can lead to large sustainable donations that allow us to expand. Nowadays, it has become increasingly important to develop a strong database and communicate with supporters regularly through email and social media, to give news updates and encourage them to continue their support. We must continue to develop effective strategies to communicate the right messages to the right supporters. We call this the supporter journey.

Volunteers From our feeding programmes to our fundraising affiliates, we are a volunteer-led organisation. We simply cannot do the work that we do without exceptionally committed and talented volunteers. As we are a low-cost organisation, the support of volunteers helps us to continue telling our story to as many people as possible. Where we have seen rapid growth, it is often down to affiliates effectively utilising the skillset of volunteers with expertise that we otherwise could not afford in our low-cost model. We have seen many excellent volunteer/supporter groups emerge filled with incredibly passionate individuals committed to feeding the next child. Thus, as stewards of this mission, growing and strengthening our volunteer base is one of the most important things we can do.

The theory behind building support

UK

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Our key networks Over the years we have realised that our awareness-raising activities across the affiliates are most effective when they are applied strategically to certain key networks. Although we should never view these networks as exclusive, it’s important to note that our story resonates well when told to these groups and can act as an excellent route into building support within a specific region.

1) The church

2) Young people

We have a special relationship with Catholicism as the Catholic community is particularly receptive to the Mary’s Meals story. Mary’s Meals is considered by many to be a ‘Fruit of Medjugorje’ and, for this reason, people who are sympathetic to Medjugorje tend to be very motivated to join our mission. The work of Mary’s Meals is also attractive to the members of the wider Christian body as their tendency towards generosity and giving makes Mary’s Meals as an excellent way to live out ‘faith in action.’ Ensuring the church is a high priority is key for National Affiliates and International Fundraising Groups when looking to develop strategies for growth.

Young people have always been especially receptive to the mission of Mary’s Meals. They relate to the children we feed in a unique way and have a real desire to help solve the problems of the world. When engaging with young people, it is important that we do not view them as a fundraising opportunity but as a group of future leaders and individuals who can be hugely influential in helping us build the grassroots movement. By developing strong and lasting relationships with schools and university groups, our proactive approach to reach out to young people has resulted in huge growth. Highly engaged volunteers, long-lasting supporters and fundraisers have continuously come from schools. Youth is a broad term, but it is vital we look to meaningfully engage young people from primary school age through to university and beyond.

There are multiple resources and examples which have been developed to help Mary’s Meals organisations engage with the Church which you can find here.

Youth Engagement resources can be found here.

UK

Case study: Daniel Adams, Executive Director MMUK “For us, Catholic Churches are the top priority as it is where we generally get the strongest response to our story. The Catholic community is particularly receptive to the story of Mary’s Meals, due to our founder being inspired by his visits to Medjugorje and due to our movement being named after Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Catholic Church has a huge history of charitable giving and its followers see Mary’s Meals as both a simple and effective way of living out ‘a preferential option for the poor.’ Therefore, when we are thinking about expanding 1into new territories, the Catholic Church Theis Theory Building Support the Behind central pillar to that.”

3) Groups and associations

4) Influential people

Groups such as the Inner Wheel, Rotary Clubs, Soroptimists or faith-based groups such as the Knights of St Columba often have strong charitable aspects and are very receptive to talks from Mary’s Meals. Many of the individuals who attend these groups would not otherwise hear about our story within other channels so, offering to give a talk at their group meetings is an effective way to raise awareness. This has proven to be an excellent source of both funds and volunteers over the years.

We have also been successful in building strong working relationships with those who have shared our story with mass audiences we wish to reach. This has been done through social media influencers, celebrity ambassadors, influential religious clergy and relationships with journalists.

We have found that we are generally more successful at developing these relationships when the individual is aligned with our mission and values. That being said, the work of Mary’s Meals is supported by people from all walks of life and we value all of them equally.

5) Corporates

6) Grant bodies, foundations and major donors

We have often found that corporate organisations and entrepreneurs have presented us with significant opportunities to build support. Because of our simple messaging and highly effective mission, many businesses have approached us to develop working partnerships. This includes initiatives such as giving a percentage of sales to Mary’s Meals as a donation or communicating our mission to their staff and customers.

Useful resources for helping to engage corporates can be found here.

Trusts, foundations and major donors can provide extremely generous gifts that allow us to accelerate expansion and feed significantly more children. While we should primarily focus on building a broad grassroots movement of support that is sustainable and reliable, we do recognise that grants and large gifts are an important part of the support we receive. Such donations usually require written proposals and reports curated by the MMI Grants and Development team and we always suggest close collaboration to ensure a smooth process.

The theory behind building support

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Raising awareness

Communications activities Utilising a variety of communications channels with effective outreach and PR activities allows us to reach new audiences. Mary’s Meals has been consistently successful in using creative techniques to bring our story to a wide and varied audience. Through a combination of assets across digital media, press, photography, video, print materials, branding and merchandise for both international and national campaigns, we aim to tell our stories in a compelling yet simple way. It is vital from the outset that capacity is built into a National Affiliate to scope a bespoke plan on how to reach both mass and niche audiences through the following communications channels:

Traditional media The publishing of positive Mary’s Meals related news, whether focused on our history or for specific large-scale campaigns and events, raises widescale awareness of our mission. Effective media engagement requires identification of newsworthy stories for national, regional or specialist newspapers, radio stations and TV. These can be generated by the affiliate directly or can come from MMI, which has a responsibility for disseminating significant global news to National Affiliates and International Fundraising Groups.

It is essential not only to learn the basics of writing an impactful press release but to understand how the media in your country works. Building strong working relationships with contacts in the media is a key part of the communications process. Respecting journalists’, editors’ and producers’ ways of working is central to this. To support you in developing a media strategy, it is important to work consultatively with MMI and attend any training provided.

Please find useful documents for engaging with media here.

Czech Republic

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Raising awareness

Digital media It has becoming increasingly vital to use digital media to raise awareness of our work and attract new audiences to our mission. MMI has integrated a multi-language website presence for all affiliates to manage and use. The website acts as the best ‘shop window’ for the world and carries a huge variety of content including stories, photographs, videos and ways of getting involved in the Mary’s Meals movement. Many people will learn about us for the first time via our websites, having been drawn in through attending events, reading articles or hearing about us at church. It is therefore extremely important that our websites are continually updated so that they can engage, inform, and inspire supporters.

Affiliates should work closely with MMI to ensure that the content on their websites is optimised and that the website is as visible as it can be to potential supporters.

and Instagram to grow the support base and inspire both current and potential supporters.

Social media is also an excellent tool for advertising local events as it is easy to create event pages and post up-to-the-minute content.

However, it is becoming increasingly challenging to stay relevant on social media and it is vital that affiliates think strategically about content and strive for constant improvement. Coordinated social media activity is also an excellent way to further engage young volunteers in our work by utilising their expertise to reach more people in our mission.

Many of our affiliates have their own social media accounts, allowing them to tell the story of Mary’s Meals in their own language and to effectively and easily run campaigns for local audiences. Follow this link to find resources to support you Affiliates use channels such as Facebook, Twitter with developing communications outreach.

Case study: Lucy Neceslova, Board Director, Mary’s Meals Czech Republic

“We always use highly skilled volunteers, which we could not afford to pay, and this allows us to grow. We find volunteers with strong competencies and give them ownership over a project area. We have a talented team of young volunteers focusing on social media and reaching new audiences, specifically in the younger generation, and are having great success. The volunteer team work closely together with our paid staff to ensure they are being optimally effective in developing and promoting content across our 12 social media channels.”

Raising Awareness

Canada

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Raising Awareness Raising Awareness

Campaigns MMI runs annual campaigns such as Big Family Christmas and Food Changes the Story, where campaign assets are created and stored on the Digital Content Library (DCL) for National Affiliates to use as they wish. Every year National Affiliates strategically plan and develop a schedule of activity to engage current supporters and reach new audiences using a mix of locally developed campaigns with global campaigns created by MMI. You can find some examples run by affiliates here.

National Ambassador Programme We have often benefited from engaging influential individuals to raise awareness of our work both on a national and international scale. Involving high-profile individuals can increase the awareness of our campaigns and events and introduce us to new audiences that we have not yet reached. By working closely with MMI, National Affiliates can be supported in the development of an ambassador strategy to reach large new audiences.

Read more about the Global Ambassadors and Special Projects strategy here.

Magnus as an ambassador As Founder and CEO, Magnus has been the primary spokesperson for Mary’s Meals for many years.

Magnus’ presence at an event, in a news piece or on a podcast, can prove incredibly effective for growing Mary’s Meals offices at any stage of their journey.

National Affiliates should capitalise on opportunities where Magnus can help in building the movement and liaise with MMI to plan his time most effectively. However, we need to remain mindful that we should not be overly reliant on one person and there are many requests for his time.

Case study: Viktor Porubský, Board Director, Mary’s Meals Slovakia “In Slovakia, we managed to set over 800 places on the Big Family Christmas table, which was one of the biggest results, despite the fact Slovakia was new to the MM family. This is because we took the concept and adapted the graphics and marketing of the campaign to make it more appealing to Slovaks. We then ran a large campaign over social networks, the radio, TV stations and other media. We invested in creating a beautiful and professional video, The tradition.

Theory BehindThis Building Support which focused on a Slovakian Christmas was relatable and helped the campaign reach2 many more people.”

Books The books written by Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, ‘The Shed That Fed A Million Children’, the follow up book with additional chapter, preface and epilogue ‘The Shed That Fed 2 Million Children’, and ‘GIVE’ have created a plethora of opportunities to raise awareness of Mary’s Meals.

In addition to being read by thousands of people who have not previously heard of Mary’s Meals, they have also prompted numerous newspaper articles, TV interviews and invitations to speak at different events, such as book festivals.

The books are an extremely powerful tool both for raising awareness and building relationships, as they can open doors to new audiences. To date, the books have prompted some of the most significant donations we have ever received.

We should therefore take every opportunity to promote the books. This includes encouraging people to purchase volumes directly, as well as buying copies for strategic purposes, such as distributing to key networks, major donors and influential contacts.

If any of the books is not yet available, affiliates should work closely with MMI to identify a strong publishing partner with extensive reach and the ability to publish in multiple formats including ebooks and audio books.

Find more resources for the books here.

Images from The Shed That Fed

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Raising awareness

Generation Hope

Documentary films Our films (Child 31, Generation Hope and Love Reaches Everywhere) have proven to be some of the most effective tools we have at our disposal.

A small number of television stations have broadcast these films with excellent response rates and their presence on our YouTube channels allows for new audiences to continually discover our organisation. The most recent film, Love Reaches Everywhere, features the international film star, Gerard Butler, and has attracted a wide-ranging new audience to our work in many different countries.

Advertising Our films are also excellent tools to use in a grassroots setting such as a school or church group, as they can portray our mission more effectively than any talk. Affiliates should view the films as key elements of their awareness-raising activities and work with MMI for assistance in translation and promotional opportunities.

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Although paid advertising does not normally fit within our low-cost model, supporters (individuals or corporate partners) can choose to pay for advertising directly to support our mission. We can also look for opportunities for free advertising from media companies wishing to demonstrate their own corporate social responsibility.

Raising awareness

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Grassroots engagement Public talks One of the most effective and low-cost ways of building support is giving public talks. Often supporter movements begin to form in regions when engaging, charismatic volunteers give inspiring presentations to groups of potential supporters. Talks can be given by volunteer speakers in a huge variety of settings – really wherever they might be invited. It is important to pro-actively reach out to our identified key networks, as giving talks to these audiences has repeatedly proved to be the most effective way of building support quickly. Some of the largest and most generous gifts we have received have resulted from hearing one of our volunteer speakers giving a talk in their local church.

Undertaking a busy and widespread schedule of public talks means having trust in a willing, well-informed and well-trained network of speakers across a broad geographical spread. It is important to form a scripted talk that can be tailored to specific audiences to communicate our key messages and updates with consistency.

Medjugorje

Case study: Ellen Miller, Regional Coordinator (IOWA), MMUSA “I invited Magnus over for the ‘Christ Our Life’ concert and he planted a seed with his talk, and I wanted to do something. I started to proactively get in contact with my friends and soon I was getting asked to speak at schools and churches around Iowa and making connections with people in the Mary’s Meals family. When you give a talk, you need to look for that person who can keep the flame going and spread the word for Mary’s Meals. So, when I give a talk, I always look to connect with that person who comes forward and I keep the relationship 1going to help them get started with spreading The Theory Behind Buildingof Support the word Mary’s Meals.”

Raising Awareness Raising Awareness

Malawi

Malawi

Grassroot campaigns Mary’s Meals organisations have also seen significant success in organising grassroot campaigns that proactively visit our key networks.

This has been the case especially with schools and churches. We have learned that giving talks or showing one of our films generates enormously positive responses to our work.

A campaign that worked well for churches was Mary’s Meals UK’s (MMUK) Rags to Riches and Raffle. The initiative, which consisted of a clothes collection and raffle ticket sale, allowed the team to meet with hundreds of congregations across the UK and speak to them about Mary’s Meals.

Thanks to the success of the campaign, Mary’s Meals became a household name amongst the Catholic community, both in Scotland and London.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, despite not being able to visit churches, the MMUK team was able to utilise the strong relationships they had built to pivot and encourage churches to share a Virtual Church Talk with congregations on social media, reaching hundreds of parishes across Britain with an update on our work.

The BackPack Project has also been used in multiple locations to open the doors to schools.

Schools are very receptive to this particular campaign because we are not trying to raise funds from the pupils, but instead are creating a wonderful educational opportunity for them. The Backpack Project, in the school itself and in the wider community, creates a platform to tell people about the core mission of Mary’s Meals. Over time, we see that teachers, parents and other people learn about our mission and choose to become supporters of our school feeding programme. In Austria, in particular, the Backpack Project has served as an excellent door-opener to schools, allowing them to build strong relationships and receive continued support from them.

Many of our affiliates have mobilised volunteer teams to target schools, churches and other groups within the community with specific campaigns to raise awareness of our work. To successfully capture new audiences, it is recommended that Mary’s Meals organisations develop unique and strategic ‘door-opening resources’ to differentiate us from other similar organisations and to be of interest to local grassroot institutions such as schools and churches.

Visit here to find some excellent examples of resources developed for grassroots fundraising.

Raising awareness

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Superstar supporters It is important to remember that many of the best ideas come from within the Mary’s Meals movement itself and not from staff. These creative and inspirational initiatives from everyday people allow us to reach networks of enthusiastic people with our work and raise substantial funds. Mary’s Meals organisations should therefore develop appropriate resources which encourage supporters both to fundraise for and raise awareness of our work. They should then look to make the most of these inspiring stories by extending their reach to new audiences. An excellent example of an exceptional supporter is Felix from Germany – a talented young man who was left paralysed by a diving accident yet raised over €139,000 by running on his Lyra walking machine to raise money for Mary’s UK Meals. MMGermany was able to make use of this inspiring story by placing Felix at the heart of their campaign and successfully engaging the press and media. This had a high impact on social Awareness-raising events media and showcased Mary’s Meals to a new audience in Germany and worldwide.

Organising events is an excellent way of building a network of supporters, as it is possible to reach new audiences that may have a strong desire to Felix, Germany support our work. Events can have a fundraising element, but it is often easier just to invite people along without creating expectations of immediate financial support. Instead, we can use the opportunity to begin raising awareness and to invite people into the Mary’s Meals family. Popular events include fun runs, film screenings, auctions and galas. When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, many of our in-person events were cancelled, but our digital platforms allowed for the development and creation of exciting and dynamic virtual events that raised awareness and funds for our work.

Examples include virtual concerts, Facebook Live interviews and many more.

Case study: Klara Heidlberger, Executive Director, MM Austria “In order to raise funds and reach new donors, we had a concert in a big castle in an area where Mary’s Meals is not known. We were disappointed when only around 50 guests came and we thought it had been a waste of time. But one year later, one of the guests from this concert decided to sponsor a school and she is already in her third year of sponsoring.

Through this sponsorship she has managed to bring in hundreds of new people into the Mary’s Meals family. It shows the importance of ‘sowing seeds’ and telling the story of 1 The Theory Behind Building Support Mary’s Meals – even if it seems like it won’t work.”

Poland

Corporate partnerships Commercial organisations present huge opportunities for building support. They have the potential to become valuable communications partners by using their reach to publicise Mary’s Meals alongside their own marketing or by involving their staff and suppliers in a particular campaign.

To develop relationships such as these, it is important to proactively connect with startups and socially responsible corporates using tools such as LinkedIn. These can be mutually beneficial but great care should be taken when entering into any agreement that allows the use of the Mary’s Meals name when selling a product. Trademark agreements should always be worked on in collaboration with MMI, considering the Corporate Relations and Trademark Licensing Agreements.

Find more useful resources on corporate partnerships here.

Case study: Patricia Friel, Executive Director, Mary’s Meals Ireland “At Mary’s Meals Ireland, we have two excellent relationships with corporate organisations which allow us to raise more awareness and funds for our work. We partner with Stampify, which is a loyalty card for collecting stamps from coffee shops. The cost of two meals is donated every time someone collects a stamp. We also have a relationship with FIID who donate a school meal every time a bowl of their health food product is sold. I recommend always keeping an eye out for new, up-and-coming brands and introducing them to Mary’s Meals, using tools such as LinkedIn, as you never know what might come of the relationship. Our support base is generally from a religious background, so having support from secular companies The Theory Behind Support 2 has brought us to a whole new demographic that weBuilding wouldn’t have reached otherwise.”

Medjugorje strategy With over one million pilgrims visiting the Marian Shrine in Bosnia-Herzegovina every year, the Mary’s Meals information centre, located on Pope John Paul II Street, introduces our work to people from all over the world and provides an extremely effective way for Mary’s Meals organisations to reach new supporters from their country.

Mary’s Meals is considered by many to be a ‘fruit of Medjugorje’ and, for this reason, pilgrims tend to be extremely motivated to join our mission. It is important to work with our team in Medjugorje to effectively engage key stakeholders and ensure you are reaching the optimum number of pilgrims.

The team in Medjugorje also plays a role in raising international awareness by engaging the global Catholic media and by utilising social media channels. Mary’s Meals organisations support the Medjugorje team by providing them with information and updates. There is also an opportunity for supporters who are visiting Medjugorje to attend the Fasting Initiative on Wednesdays and offer up a fast for our mission or partake digitally via a Facebook group.

Read more about our ‘Medjugorje Strategy’ here.

Collection cans and promotional resources in public places Our vision

Volunteers can play a huge role in raising awareness by becoming distributors of our materials – collection cans, flyers, posters – in local public places (including libraries, schools, shops, doctor and dentist surgeries etc.)

Our vision is that every daily meal child receives one in their place of education have and that all those who share more than they need, even with those who lack the most basic things.

Our mission

people to offer Our mission is to enable time, or prayer, skills, their money, goods, ent, provide the and through this involvem suffering the to those most effective help poverty in the world’s effects of extreme poorest communities.

Find us online

marysmeals.ie

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.org Email: ireland@marysmeals +353 (0) 1 853 5163 +353 (0) 86 3140814 Hall, Mary’s Meals, St Patrick’s Education, Marino Institute of 9 Dublin Griffith Avenue, All figures used were the time of printing.

You can find the latest communications resources to use for promotion here and you can work with MMI to develop new resources.

Join our

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Number: 20061920 Registered Charity 16897 CHY Number: CHY Limited Company: 420286

global fam ily

Our visio n is that every child place of educ receives one daily need, shar ation, and that meal in their all those e with thos who have e who lack more even the most basi than they c things.

Your det

Food changes the story.

ails:

Please complet Mary’s Meals e this form using a ballpoin Ireland, P32, t pen and Griffith Avenue St Patrick’s , Dublin 9.

Hall, Marino send to: Institute Full name:

of Educatio n,

Home address :

Tel no:

Email:

I would like to receive to join the Marys Meals mailing regular update list s.

Ways to donate: Online

: www.marysme als.ie By bank transfer: you can depos the Mary’s Meals bank it donations account using directly into Account the details name: Mary’s below.

IBAN: IE19 Meals BOFI 9053 BIC: BOFI 3616 5710 IE 2D 78 Once you have ireland@mary donated, please let us know smeals.org by emailin Thank you g for your suppo rt.

Mary’s Meals Ireland, Institute of Education P32, St Patrick’s

Hall, Marino CHY Number: , Griffith Avenue, CHY 16897 Registered Dublin 9. | Limited Charity Number: Company: 20061920 420286

it costs

€18.30 to feed a child whole scho for a ol year. www.mar ysme

als.ie

Mary’s Meals outlets Some of our affiliates/international fundraising groups have a designated space for Mary’s Meals. In the UK there are several shops which raise funds for our work. In Croatia, there are two information centres based in major cities that act as an educational resource for Mary’s Meals and a place to handle donations.

By having a physical presence, Mary’s Meals organisations have the possibility to create a natural space for volunteers to meet and drive awareness to the movement. All efforts to have a physical premise must remain in our low-cost model and we would advise that the space is either donated or given at a reduced rent by a generous supporter.

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Raising awareness

Croatia

Case study: Zrinka Skelin, Board Chair, Mary’s Meals Croatia “We need to have an office and we need to have an info centre, so we decided to combine the two.

We found a location close to the city centre in Zagreb and another two in Slavonski Brod and Pozega.

These are great environments to welcome people in who wish to donate to Mary’s Meals and to accommodate volunteers for regular meetings so they can think of ways to grow our mission. People who know Mary’s Meals can come and donate this helps to act as a centre for grassroots activities.”

The Theoryand Behind Building Support 2

Building Relationships

Managing supporter relationships From the outset, it is crucial that any new Mary’s Meals affiliate builds in a timely response mechanism to thank donors for each donation and to connect with supporters or potential supporters. This is part of what we call the ‘supporter journey.’ A supporter is someone who offers their time, money, skills, goods or prayer to support our mission. Our aim should be that everyone who supports us is made to feel that they are an integral part of the Mary’s Meals family. It is important that we develop systems to ensure every supporter feels personally connected to our work. This should be in keeping with our culture and commensurate with the size of their gift or commitment to volunteering.

Building relationships that enhance the supporter journey leads to more sustainable and increased contributions which will strengthen the mission of Mary’s Meals.

To read more about developing a supporter journey, please visit here.

Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) As a Mary’s Meals organisation grows, it is incredibly important to build and maintain a well-organised database of donors and other supporters such as media partners, ‘in-kind’ supporters and corporate contacts. MMI will work with you to implement our global CRM solution, Salesforce. Having a CRM allows safe and secure management of supporter data that is easy to navigate, analyse, and that will ultimately allow you to build stronger relationships with your supporters. If you are waiting to implement Salesforce, please ensure that you are collecting your data in line with Salesforce requirements and please work in consultation with MMI to prepare an adequate spreadsheet for your needs.

Case study: Joanna Rabska, Board Director, Mary’s Meals Poland “CRM allows us to monitor our donations in much greater detail. Now we can run reports on everything from regions to date range and number of donors. This will help us to measure the impact of specific campaigns and the growth of our grassroots movement.

We hope CRM will give us a greater understanding of our donors and enable us to become more strategic.”

Croatia

Communicating with supporters To build meaningful relationships with supporters, it is vital that a strong communications schedule is developed including direct mail, letters, email marketing and telephone campaigns.

It is up to Mary’s Meals organisations to create their own bespoke communications schedules, creating culturally-specific content and global updates. By communicating regularly with supporters, it is possible to effectively steward them towards offering their time, money, goods, skills and/or prayer to support Mary’s Meals. These communications can also encourage supporters to participate in other campaigns such as emergency appeals or international initiatives such as Big Family Christmas.

As mentioned above, it is essential to build capacity into your team to respond in a timely way to each new donation or contact from a supporter or potential supporter. This is the key to forming strong relationships with new donors, as is the ability to respond to a request for information quickly, accurately and with friendly enthusiasm.

Case study: Nikki Tardiff, Director of Development, MMUSA “In MMUSA, we are focused on developing a positive supporter journey. This is really about our gratitude to supporters as we want to ensure that they feel appreciated and thanked for their contribution to our organisation. We have tailored our supporter segmentation a lot this year and this has really helped our stewardship. We have developed audience-specific communications for our corporate partners, regular donors, major donors, volunteers and fundraisers. We also contact those who are on our database but do not yet actively support us – we call them ‘Friends of Mary’s Meals.’ We can present themRaising with Awareness different campaigns or newsletters and test Raising Awareness different strategies to engage supporters based on their segment. We aim to generate more grassroots activities and then proactively decide how to communicate with The Theory Behind Building Support 2 supporters once they join the organisation.”

‘The Story’ Securing regular (monthly) donations from supporters is essential and valuable to our organisation. Regular donations allow us to plan more effectively, to grow the grassroots movement and, ultimately, to expand our feeding programmes. It is important that regular donors are not only thanked on a regular basis but also shown the impact of their donations via regular updates and news pieces. To help the stewarding of supporters, MMI has developed a new product called ‘The Story’ which enables supporters to join a community of regular givers and receive regular email updates called ‘The Next Chapter’. This carries information from across our programme countries, highlighting the impact of generous donations. National Affiliates should work with MMI to implement this campaign and proactively reach out to supporters.

Sponsor a School and general fundraising pages Sponsor a School is an excellent way for individuals to organise their own fundraising initiatives within their communities, networks, extended families, schools, and parishes etc. The campaign recognises the desire of many donors to see something tangible from their donations. When supporters receive reports, they are motivated to continue supporting the school as they can clearly see the impact their fundraising has on children’s lives. Therefore, Sponsor a School, is a truly excellent tool for building strong and meaningful relationships and it should be used to allow grassroots communities to provide long-lasting support for our mission.

Similarly, for more transient fundraising efforts, such as a sponsored half-marathon, encouraging supporters to use our general fundraising platform is an excellent way for supporters to involve their networks through their own social media, thus raising awareness of our work.

Case study: Klara Heidelberger, Mary’s Meals Austria “I think it is the best product we have as it is tangible, and people know exactly what their money is being used for. Whenever someone gives a large donation (€5k+) we ask if they would like to sponsor a school as it then encourages them to continue to support Mary’s Meals and give multiple donations. People often cry when they receive 1their school reports as it is a lovely personal The Theory Behind Building Support touch.”

The Theory Behind Building Support

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Major giving We should remain focused on building a broad grassroots movement of support which is sustainable and reliable. However, major giving can provide large gifts which allow us to accelerate expansions to feed even more children, so this is a vital element of our work. Major donors are individuals who either give, or have the potential to give, a significant amount of money to Mary’s Meals. As we have seen repeatedly, these supporters generally come forward because they have encountered grassroots initiatives.

At the earliest opportunity, new Mary’s Meals affiliates should task someone with approaching major donors to start building relationships and then nurture the ongoing relationship.

This should be handled differently from grassroots engagement, as major donors require bespoke stewardship and a quite specific set of facts, data, and opportunities. To build longlasting and fruitful relationships with commercial partners, it is generally more appropriate to build relationships gradually and purposefully via phone calls, emails and in-person presentations. It is also important to ensure that you have a strong knowledge and understanding of a company’s own priorities, strategies and ambitions. This is a two-way relationship and not simply a “stick-yourlogo-here” request. Each suitable and relevant corporate organisation should be encouraged to become an authentic part of the Mary’s Meals family, as it is only by welcoming companies to our movement that we can work with them to truly accelerate growth.

Case study: Joesph Black, Head of Major Giving and Partnerships, MMUK “The UK’s small major giving team works in partnership with the grassroots engagement and communication teams. Most of our major donors first hear about our work through grassroots engagement in their local community such as community talks, media and fundraising events. Our major giving team then works to nurture and steward these supporters into long-term relationships.

The team also develops major donor networking opportunities and manages our expanding portfolio of grants, government and corporate relationships. By having a dedicated team looking after these key relationships, we are able to spend more time 1creating new opportunities and developing The Theory Behind relationships Building Support with our supporters.” strong

Legacies

Grant-making bodies

Another fruit of grassroots support can be a legacy payment. In what is an incredible act of kindness, supporters may choose to leave a significant amount of money in their will. Although it can be challenging to directly promote this form of giving, it is possible to drip-feed this through communications so individuals are aware that they can consider Mary’s Meals for a bequest.

In the UK, there was an example of an individual who left a very significant sum of money as part of their legacy and their awareness of Mary’s Meals could be traced back to hearing a church talk over ten years earlier. This demonstrates the importance of fostering strong and meaningful relationships from the outset.

Many grant-making bodies have approached Mary’s Meals over the years with general awareness-raising and relationship-building opportunities. However, it is important to proactively look for and scope out activity that has match-funding potential.

In order to avoid wasting time and effort, affiliates should thoroughly research the giving criteria of these bodies before approaching them with information about Mary’s Meals. Again, if someone with a connection to such an organisation can make the first introduction, this often greatly increases the chances of success.

Affiliates should liaise with the Grants and Strategic sponsorship Development team within MMI from an early stage to ensure a co-ordinated and consistent If you have particularly strong relationships with approach across the movement. major donors, you may wish to pitch some strategic sponsorship for organisational development or to boost grassroots growth. For example, you might approach them to give money to directly sponsor an advertising campaign. Another option might be for the major donor to pledge money for a match-funding campaign. This usually encourages a groundswell of grassroots support, as individuals realise that their donation can have double the impact.

Building relationships

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Switzerland

Spain

Volunteer engagement The successful recruitment and management of volunteers is crucial to sustain scalable growth. As we are a low-cost organisation, the support of volunteers helps us to spread our story as widely as possible.

As stewards of this mission, growing and strengthening our volunteer base is one of the most important things we can do.

Find out more about how national affiliates manage their volunteers here.

We should always aim to fully understand and appreciate the skills and gifts that volunteers can offer us in our work. There are two main types of volunteers that help us further the mission of Mary’s Meals:

1) Community volunteers

2) Key volunteers

These are the volunteers who are present in the grassroots networks and help to actively build support for Mary’s Meals. These volunteers can give talks in schools and churches, spread the word of Mary’s Meals amongst their local community, mobilise other supporters to take part in key campaigns and actively fundraise for our work. To see continued grassroots growth, we must constantly recruit, inform, and organise volunteers effectively.

These are the volunteers who want to contribute to organisational development and to support grassroots growth within the structure of a Mary’s Meals organisation. These individuals may be board members, organisation members, student interns or volunteers with a specific role description. You should develop a structure that gives ownership to volunteers with the sufficient skills, commitment, and drive to grow the presence in a region.

Recruiting volunteers It is important to constantly make people aware of the opportunity to volunteer by promoting it through communications channels and by asking existing volunteers to invite their friends to join the movement. Talks and events also provide a great platform for enlisting new volunteers.

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Building relationships

Ireland

Volunteer structure To achieve growth, many affiliates have successfully created supporter groups according to location.

By selecting suitable group leaders who liaise with the affiliate office on key campaigns and activities, these regional hubs can drive meaningful levels of support. It’s important the group leaders are able to successfully galvanise a group to support Mary’s Meals. Developing strong and engaged groups can be highly beneficial for Mary’s Meals – for example in 2020, supporter groups accounted for 42% of Mary’s Meals Ireland’s annual income.

Patricia Friel’s story, Executive Director, Mary’s Meals Ireland “In Ireland, 42% of our income comes from our volunteer support groups – they are incredibly important to our movement. A huge part of my role is travelling round the country and engaging with our 120+ volunteers and motivating them to continue supporting Mary’s Meals. We are always looking to set up more of these groups as they play such a vital role. We have recently developed a document called ‘How to start a support group’ for Theory Behind Building Support 2 individuals who would be interested inThe starting one.”

Czech Republic

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The Theory Behind Building Support

USA

Communicating with volunteers

Prayerful engagement

It is essential that affiliates and IFGs enable open communication between their office and volunteer groups. They should also establish how staff can best delegate tasks to volunteer ambassadors. Tools such as WhatsApp or Facebook groups allow volunteers to stay in regular contact with their local Mary’s Meals organisation and each other. Likewise, it can be useful to communicate with volunteers through regular, bespoke volunteer emails to ensure they are up to date with the latest Mary’s Meals news.

Hosting training and information sessions to ensure volunteers are fully informed on our values and mission will allow them to become excellent emissaries for our work. Many affiliates also organise volunteer days to give volunteers the opportunity to be thanked for supporting our work and to inspire and motivate them to do more for Mary’s Meals.

For many involved in Mary’s Meals, prayer is the most important of all our activities. Although our organisation remains open to ‘all faiths and none’ many of our supporters hear about us through church networks or support us as an expression of their faith. We should therefore provide them with the opportunity to come together and pray for our mission. Ways to do this include distributing Mary’s Meals’ prayer cards or segmenting the database and sending emails with spiritual reflections to those who are interested. Mary’s Meals organisations may also decide to organise events or prayer groups for their volunteers and supporters or to promote global prayer events such as the Family Pilgrimage to Medjugorje.

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Useful Resources The Mary’s Meals Digital Content Library (DCL) can be accessed here or via the Mary’s Meals SharePoint homepage, under the subheading ‘Communications - your one stop shop’.

Useful functions include a recent tab to view newly uploaded content, and featured collections where you can browse content by theme (2 million, Big Family Christmas, Magnus, etc). You can also create your own content collection and share this with colleagues or external sources.

The National Affiliate Resource Hub provides a host of useful resources to support with building support and growing the Mary’s Meals movement.

The Communications Resources folder is equipped with a plethora of design assets, campaigns, and key documents to inspire and assist you with your day-to-day work at Mary’s Meals.

For further information, please contact calum.macfarlane-barrow@marysmeals.org

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Mary’s Meals International Organisation (A company limited by guarantee) Charity number: SC045223 Company number: SC488380

marysmeals.org

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The Theory Behind Building Support