The Aviva Cost of Living Boost

Raising funds to help local causes with rising costs.

THE HEADSCRATCHER

You know the cost-of-living crisis is hitting non-profits hard: rising bills, increased demand and dropping income. You want to encourage others to give generously to community projects to make your support go further. But how do you ask people to part with their cash to help others during a cost-of-living crisis?

Building on the success of the Aviva Community Fund, Aviva created a £2 million Aviva Cost of Living Boost to support cost-of-living-related projects through match funding. But before this vital funding could be shared, we needed to launch a campaign to encourage causes to apply and drive donations from the public.

£3.3m raised

276 projects benefited

51% employee engagement

Our insight showed that people are more likely to engage with and support causes in their local area. If we could highlight a cause from each region of the UK, we’d be able to make the content more relevant to area audiences and engage attention using regional comms.

We worked with Aviva and our partners to identify potential causes and developed a two-phase approach. Firstly, targeted outreach would recruit eligible projects that met the fund’s criteria. Secondly, we’d raise awareness among the general public. Their donations would drive the campaign’s success, with Aviva doubling donations up to £250 per person.

From empowering older people with digital literacy skills to supporting people at risk of homelessness, our campaign focused on stories from a cross-section of regional projects. We also needed to drive donations sensitively, so our creative reflected ‘community and togetherness’. Emotive imagery and language that focused on the ripple effect of individual donations were used to engage hearts and minds.

A mix of owned, earned and paid channels was selected, including regional print, social, digital display, email, SEO and PR. Micro and mid-tier influencers were tasked with visiting a community cause that meant something to them personally, and we trialled advertising on a community app.

We also created an employee engagement plan with an employee toolkit and comms for internal channels. Aviva employees could donate a voucher they were given to support a financial wellbeing project of their choice, and Aviva would double it.

Our outreach campaign reached our audience of good causes and encouraged 725 Cost of Living Boost applications. After vetting, 414 applications were approved, and their match funding appeals went live on Crowdfunder.

Our employee engagement campaign reached new heights for the Aviva Community Fund – engaging over half of Aviva’s employees.

The whole campaign won a highly commended at the 2023 Purpose Awards. But most importantly, Aviva’s full fund was successfully distributed within the timeframe to give some incredible causes a much-needed boost, with 276 Cost of Living Boost projects raising an amazing £3.3m.