The public's favourite appeal

Caption: A billboard promoting the appeal in the 1970s.

This is an edited version of an article which first appeared in The Salvation Army's Hallelujah magazine (2009), written by Major John Smith who worked as an information officer in the Southern Territory Public Relations Department from 1965-75.

In September 1880, underneath the proverbial gum tree in Adelaide’s Botanic Park, the seeds were sown for a partnership between the people of Australia and The Salvation Army.

Immigrant London milkman John Gore, at the conclusion of that alfresco evangelistic meeting, offered: “If there’s any man here who hasn’t had a meal today, let him come home with me.”

From that moment , an incremental dynamic relationship between the Army and the Australian public ensued.

Not all who were exposed to the Army’s evangelistic methods or message made the response that the Army desired, but what did develop was a respect, trust and confidence in what the people of the Army did in continuing to offer support and responding with concern, care and compassion to their fellow Australians in need or distress.

At no time was it ever thought that the Army could be, or would be, financially independent of public support in the light of the service offered and given.

It was one of the never-failing indicators of respect and growing relationship with The Salvation Army and the community that in collection boxes in the street, at the gate of a railway station, football ground or in the bars of hotels across the country (in exchange for a copy of The War Cry), a coin always rattled.

Seeking funds

The Self Denial Appeal, ingeniously introduced in England in 1888, and copied in Australia, became the face of the call to Salvationists to deny themselves of some little luxury annually for a week and devote the savings to the Army funds. For the next few decades the appeal proceeds were distributed to the Army’s missionary program, its social work and general funds.

But as demand grew, so did the pressure to explore ways and means to address the problem financially.

In the early 1960s Commissioner (later General) Frederick Coutts appointed Major Charles Cross to visit Canada on a fact-finding mission to study all aspects of the functioning of public relations and fundraising activity in that territory. He was partnered in that 1963 survey by Major Don Campbell from the Australia Southern Territory.

Cross and Campbell reported to their respective headquarters on Salvation Army advisory boards, effective stewardship organisation among Salvationists, the need for effective public information programs, capital appeals and the manner in which Canada had, since 1942, conducted an annual national-wide blitz and called it the Red Shield Appeal.

Major Cross’ energies were immediately applied to the introduction of stewardship promotion, while in the south Major Campbell worked with characteristic zeal in setting up a Red Shield Appeal structure.

While operating separately, there was concord in both territories on the need to recruit and establish citizens advisory boards in cities and towns where more than one expression of the Army existed. These boards would be comprised of influential local people whose advice, though advisory in nature, would extend to fundraising.

Major Don Campbell (later Commissioner) noted that “during 1963-64 significant consultative conferences took place between both Australian territories involving officers of most ranks. These conferences produced understanding and enlightenment about the new pattern of fundraising under consideration.”

The professional fundraising training in Sydney had its marked impact upon the development of the Red Shield Appeal structure, with the planned-giving concept replacing the stewardship approach, first in the Eastern Territory, and then in the Southern Territory.

There was reason to believe that with effective planned-giving programs in every corps, the separation of the Self Denial Appeal as an internal appeal to Salvationists for missionary work, the proceeds of a national Red Shield Appeal would be devoted to the Army’s community welfare, emergency relief and the network of social services.

Along with the announcement that the Red Shield Appeal would be the flagship of Army fund-raising, influential community leadership was being recruited to match the detailed structure developed and modified on the Canadian model.

Emphasis was given to the setting up and the distinction between the approaches to business, corporate and key gifts and the residential or doorknock aspects of the appeal.

In 1965, the Australia Eastern Territory conducted its first Red Shield Appeal doorknock, while in the Southern Territory several Red Shield-type pilot appeals were undertaken.

The 1966 and 1967 efforts were promoted as The Annual Appeal, with the 1968 appeal being the first official Red Shield Appeal in the south, and effectively the first nationwide campaign for the Army.

From modest and incremental increases in the early years, the Red Shield Appeal continues to be one of the most generously supported of charitable appeals in the country.