One of the toughest of all pitch battle grounds is the fundraising arena for charities and good causes. Over 10.000 charities in the UK alone. All of them for a deserving cause. All of them with a powerful emotional call. It is a dog eat dog world -where dogs and pets often fair better than humans!

Succeeding in this intensively competitive space, where everything from rattling of tins to sophisticated direct marketing is a weapon, calls for creativity and originality.  This special award was nominated, and written up, by Hannah Briggs.

ORIGINAL PERFORMANCE IN FUNDRAISING. FRANNY ARMSTRONG.

For Franny Armstrong – the not so stupid director behind ‘The Age of Stupid’, mastering the art of pitching has become critical to her success, not only as a filmmaker but also as a climate change campaigner. Pitching for financial support is one thing however, changing people’s behaviour is quite another.

Having raised over $1.2 million to finance and distribute the film using a business model known as ‘crowd sourcing’ (essentially persuading cinema goers to buy a stake in the film), Franny has now taken a more direct approach to reducing Britain’s carbon footprint.

 The launch of the 1010 campaign in September last year made front page news in the Guardian following her impressive pitch on London’s Southbank. “We’ll be the first species to wipe ourselves off the planet knowingly” said Franny as she urged the public to pledge their allegiance and commit to reducing their carbon emissions by 10% by 2010.

 Another attention grabbing moment included getting Environment Secretary Ed Miliband on loudspeaker whilst on a trip to India and persuading him and his cabinet to sign up there and then. So far 58, 839 individuals, businesses and organisations have joined the campaign and that number continues to grow by the day.

 If the 10% cut is achieved by the end of this year, it looks like Britain should be in good shape for its next big eco pitch – the 2010 climate summit in Mexico. 

RELENTLESS PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE. LOCOG.

Arguably, the pitch of the decade was London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympics. It was glorious, it was theatre at its most compelling, it had the whole country on the edge of its TV sofas. It was, as Seb Coe said, about making the emotional connection.London 2012. A triumph of emotion.

For the sponsorship team at LOCOG, charged with raising totally unreasonable  sums from the commercial sector, it must have seemed a case of “how the hell do you follow that?”

Their battleground was rocky! The soaring costs, from some £2 billion to £9  billion pounds, not the kind of figures that fill business with confidence. The plum global sponsorships already assigned by IOC. Add to that the always difficult task of demonstrating the value of sponsorship and doing this when the economy had gone into total meltdown!

LOCOG have achieved their own Olympic record, an astonishing £600 million!!