If you ask most charity marketers when their big campaign moment is, the answer is almost always the same: Christmas! And it makes sense. People are with loved ones, in a giving mood, and thinking about those less fortunate.
The trouble is, everyone else has had exactly the same idea. According to Ad Intel around 35% of offline charity media spend happens in Q4 alone, which means an awful lot of charities are shouting for attention at exactly the same time. Cutting through that noise is getting harder and more expensive every year.
So what if there were other moments, just as powerful, that hardly anyone is using?
Meet the “fresh start effect”
Behavioural scientists have identified something called the fresh start effect: the idea that people are far more likely to make a change, set an intention or commit to something new at the start of a clearly defined time period. The start of a new year. The start of a new month. Even the start of a new week, to a lesser extent.
These moments naturally prompt a bit of reflection. We look back at what’s gone before and think about what we’d like to do differently. It’s the same psychology that fuels New Year’s resolutions and gym membership spikes every January.
Commercial brands have cottoned on to this for years. But charities, by and large, haven’t.
A simple idea worth testing
Imagine a campaign that lands on the first of every month, asking the question: Will this be the month you give to charity? Paired with a clear picture of what that donation could achieve in the next 30 days, it taps into exactly the mindset people are already in, without having to compete with every other charity in the country at once.
It’s low cost, low risk, and easy to test against your usual approach. You don’t need to abandon Christmas. You just need to stop treating it as the only moment that matters.
It’s not just about the calendar, it’s about life stages too
Interestingly, this kind of psychology doesn’t only show up at the start of a month or year. It seems to kick in around personal milestones too.
There’s a well-known phenomenon sometimes called the “nine-ender effect,” named after the discovery that people are more likely to make big life decisions as they approach a birthday ending in nine. One study found that people whose age ended in a nine were 48% more likely to sign up for their first marathon than people at any other age.
That’s a fascinating insight for charity events teams in particular. A campaign that speaks directly to someone turning 30, 40 or 50 (think: “Turning 40 this year? Make it count.”) could resonate far more strongly than a generic appeal, simply because it lands at a moment when people are already in a reflective, change-making frame of mind.
Small shifts, big opportunity
None of this requires a complete overhaul of how a charity plans its year. It’s about layering in a few extra, well-timed moments alongside the campaigns you already run, and testing how they perform.
Given how crowded Q4 has become, even a modest shift towards these quieter, less contested moments could make a real difference to both response rates and cost efficiency.
Curious about the other moments that drive giving?
The fresh start effect is just one of the psychological and seasonal triggers we’ve covered in our exploration of why people give. From paydays to new babies to the power of gratitude, there’s a lot more where this came from, backed by real data and real campaign results. If you’re starting to think about next year’s fundraising calendar, it’s well worth a read before you do.
If you’re looking for fresh campaign points quickly, try our tool. After answering a few short questions about your charity it’ll provide you with a number of potential campaign points throughout the year, along with a rationale.
