Prepared by: The Handy Marketing Company

This Christmas, we have an extraordinary opportunity to extend the reach of St Nicholas Hospice Care's heartfelt appeal through strategic digital storytelling. Building upon the foundation of direct mail and Light Up a Life events, this proposal outlines a comprehensive approach to engaging supporters, inspiring donations, and creating lasting connections within our community.

Our focus is on amplifying Miranda's powerful story whilst establishing a measurable, repeatable framework for future campaigns. Through thoughtful content planning, multi-channel coordination, and strategic corporate engagement, we aim to demonstrate the transformative potential of digital fundraising for St Nicholas Hospice Care.

The Christmas Appeal 2025 centres on a profoundly moving narrative of love, loss, and the enduring impact of compassionate care. Miranda's story illuminates the heart of what St Nicholas Hospice Care represents: support that transcends a single moment and becomes woven into the fabric of families and communities.

Our mission is to carry this story beyond traditional channels, creating digital touchpoints that resonate with existing supporters whilst reaching new audiences. Through authentic storytelling and strategic content distribution, we'll transform Miranda's experience into a catalyst for community engagement and charitable giving.

The digital landscape offers unprecedented opportunities to share these deeply human moments, inviting people to become part of something larger than themselves. By combining emotional resonance with clear pathways to action, we'll create a campaign that honours the hospice's mission whilst driving measurable impact.

This campaign represents a pivotal opportunity to benchmark a digital fundraising model that can be refined and repeated. By measuring what works, understanding audience behaviour, and documenting our learnings, we'll build organisational confidence in digital approaches whilst establishing best practices for years to come.

This approach respects the hospice's limited resources whilst delivering professional-grade digital marketing. Rather than requiring extensive new creative development, we'll work intelligently with what exists, adding structure, targeting, and optimisation to drive measurable results.

We recognise that St Nicholas Hospice Care needs a solution that balances ambition with practicality, offering maximum impact within realistic budget parameters. Rather than a one-size-all package, we've developed three distinct tiers, each designed to deliver specific value whilst building upon the previous level.

This flexible structure allows you to choose the level of support that best aligns with your current resources, internal capacity, and strategic priorities. Whether you opt for foundational planning, hands-on delivery, or comprehensive partnership with knowledge transfer, each tier is designed to deliver measurable results and move the organisation forward.

Our recommendation focuses on Tier 1 as the optimal starting point, providing complete strategic planning and content development whilst leaving execution flexibility in your hands. However, we've outlined enhanced options should you prefer more comprehensive support or wish to invest in building long-term digital capability within your team.

Tier 1 represents our recommended entry point, a comprehensive strategic package that provides everything needed for a successful digital campaign whilst respecting budget constraints and leveraging your internal team's capabilities. This tier delivers complete planning, professional copywriting, and clear implementation guidance, essentially handing you a "campaign in a box" ready for deployment.

The centrepiece is a detailed content calendar spanning 3rd November through 25th December, strategically mapping 2–3 posts per week to key campaign moments, donation milestones, and Light Up a Life events. Each calendar entry includes guidance on optimal posting times, platform-specific considerations, and content themes that maintain narrative momentum throughout the appeal period.

Accompanying the calendar is a copy framework containing approximately 15 crafted posts, each with both short and long-form versions optimised for different platforms. These aren't generic templates, they're carefully written pieces that weave Miranda's story with calls-to-action, incorporate relevant hashtags for discoverability, and maintain the warmth and authenticity that defines St Nicholas Hospice Care's voice.

Tier 2 builds upon the strategic foundation of Tier 1 by adding hands-on execution and active campaign management. Whilst Tier 1 provides the plan, Tier 2 delivers the doing, removing the implementation burden from your internal team and ensuring consistent, professional content deployment throughout the campaign period.

The key difference is direct posting management: rather than handing over content for your team to schedule, we take full responsibility for publishing 12–15 posts across your social channels. This includes optimal timing based on audience analytics, responsive engagement with comments and messages, and real-time adjustments based on post performance. Your team maintains oversight and approval processes whilst we handle the day-to-day execution.

Live event coverage for the 4th and 12th December Light Up a Life ceremonies adds dynamic, in-the-moment content that captures the emotional heart of your campaign. We'll create real-time social media posts, capture key moments, and amplify the community atmosphere, helping those who cannot attend feel connected to these special occasions.

Perhaps most valuably, Tier 2 includes a mid-campaign review where we analyse performance data, identify what's resonating with audiences, and make strategic adjustments to maximise the campaign's final weeks. This responsive approach ensures we're continuously optimising rather than simply executing a static plan. An end-of-campaign insights report provides comprehensive analysis of what worked, audience behaviour patterns, and recommendations for future appeals.

Tier 3 represents the most comprehensive investment in your organisation's digital future. Beyond campaign execution, this tier focuses on knowledge transfer and capability building, ensuring that St Nicholas Hospice Care doesn't just benefit from this single campaign but develops sustainable internal expertise for years to come.

The coaching component is central to Tier 3's value proposition. We'll conduct dedicated sessions with your Communications and Marketing Leads, walking through the campaign's strategic thinking, content development process, and performance analysis methodologies. These aren't generic training sessions but tailored coaching based on your specific context, challenges, and aspirations.

The extended performance report goes well beyond basic metrics, providing deep analysis of audience segmentation, content theme performance, optimal posting times, and conversion pathway effectiveness. More importantly, it translates data into actionable insights, helping you understand not just what happened but why, and how to apply those learnings to future campaigns.

We'll also collaboratively develop a refined digital framework for your next year's appeals, incorporating lessons learned and building upon successful elements. This forward-looking strategic planning ensures that each campaign builds upon the last, creating compounding improvements in digital fundraising effectiveness over time.

The genius of Tier 1 lies in its balance: comprehensive enough to drive real results, yet affordable enough to represent a low-risk entry point into strategic digital fundraising. You receive professional-grade planning without the ongoing retainer costs of full-service execution.

This tier particularly suits organisations with capable internal teams who simply need expert guidance and quality content, rather than outsourcing execution entirely. It respects your existing resources whilst elevating them with strategic thinking and professional copywriting that would typically cost far more if developed entirely in-house.

Throughout our discussions, St Elizabeth Hospice has emerged as an aspirational benchmark, an organisation whose digital presence and community engagement represent where St Nicholas Hospice Care aims to evolve. Rather than viewing this as discouraging comparison, we see it as valuable strategic clarity about your goals and the tangible path to achieving them.

We've carefully analysed what makes St Elizabeth Hospice's digital approach effective and identified how those principles translate into actionable strategies for St Nicholas. The good news? Many of their successes stem not from massive budgets or large teams, but from consistent, strategic application of core digital marketing principles, exactly what this proposal delivers.

The pathway from aspiration to achievement isn't mysterious, it requires strategic planning, consistent execution, and willingness to learn and refine. This campaign provides exactly that foundation, incorporating proven approaches whilst remaining authentic to St Nicholas Hospice Care's unique community position and values.

The most successful digital transformations don't happen through massive one-time investments or wholesale operational overhauls. They emerge from consistent, strategic steps that build upon each other, exactly what this tiered approach enables.

By starting with solid planning, measuring results carefully, and scaling investment based on proven outcomes, St Nicholas Hospice Care can confidently grow digital fundraising capability without undue risk or resource strain. This is digital fundraising evolution, not revolution—and that's precisely what makes it sustainable and successful.

Moving from proposal to active campaign requires coordination, but we've designed a streamlined process that respects your time whilst ensuring thorough preparation. The timeline is ambitious but achievable, positioning us to launch the digital campaign in alignment with your broader Christmas Appeal activities.

We recognise that hospice teams are extraordinarily busy, particularly during the lead-up to Christmas. Our process is designed to maximise efficiency, concentrated information rather than prolonged back-and-forth, clear deliverables rather than ambiguous processes, and comprehensive documentation that enables confident execution.