Two years after launching No Child Born to Die, which – among other mighty goals – set a target of raising an additional £150m between 2011 and 2015, Tanya Steele talks about how Save the Children has fared.

How would you characterise the first two years of No Child Born to Die?

It’s gone really, really well. The central idea, the idea of No Child Born to Die, is a really compelling one because it goes against human nature. A child isn’t born to die. As soon as we saw the idea we knew it was the one. We hired the agency (Adam and Eve) on the spot.

And the simplicity and clarity have absolutely spoken to supporters – both existing and new. That’s what all of this is built on. You can have the best fundraising plan, the best SMS plan or mailout, but everything is built on that central idea to engage people.

Are you on target?

Bearing in mind it’s a five-year campaign, we are definitely on track. We are slightly ahead of track – so I know my targets are going to go up! We know it’s a tough setting externally and certainly we’ve invested a lot of money, but we’ve increased our profitability.

So what’s brought you ahead of target?

I’d love to say there is a silver bullet, but it never is. It’s a few things. Some aspects of fundraising have performed particularly well; our individual giving has performed very well as has corporate partnerships.

On a wider level, what the campaign has done is provide a clear, compelling and ambitious goal for the entire organisation. So when I look at results for resources, we are also looking at results in terms of what we’ve done for children (that’s our number one) and how we have brought people and resources together. This is a campaign that’s managed across fundraising, campaigning and marketing. The decisions are made weekly and through a campaign schedule. The plan has to flow across the whole organisation from day one otherwise it won’t go through for investment. It’s a partnership. Organisations have got it wrong if there’s a hierarchy of one department ahead of another. We’re all here for the same reason. {{image:{"asset":"AD707E41-F026-445D-8E7691807AEE0D97","alt_text":"","dimensions":"","quality":"mediumPerformance","alignment":"auto","spacing":"5","copyright":"","caption":"","link":"","link_asset":"","link_page":"","link_target":"_self"}:image}}

At the outset you said you were keen to intersect with the lives of potential supporters at key moments of their children’s lives. How has that worked?

It’s always incredibly difficult to know if you’ve definitely hit the nail on the head, but our sense is that we’ve reached more mums, that we have more families on board, and that the age profile has reduced a little. We feel that we are starting to make the shift we aimed for, but we know that it is still going to take a number of years. One of the key parts of that is positioning ourselves very much as a children’s organisation, not only focused on overseas issues, but regardless of where children are in the world.

How do you see UK work and appeals sitting alongside No Child Born to Die?

We see them sitting very much alongside each other. Really our positioning is ‘no child born without a chance’. The mission of the organisation is saving children’s lives, fighting for their rights and helping them to realise their potential. We know that mortality isn’t particularly an issue facing children in the UK, but the level of wasted potential – particularly with the sheer numbers of children living in poverty in the UK – is shocking. We have always worked in the UK and while we certainly in our UK poverty push we got some criticism, but ultimately we felt it was the right thing to do and we will continue to speak out on behalf of UK children.

At the end of the day it comes down to need. There is a greater need now in terms of the government resources available to support children in poverty, we’re concerned about the rising numbers. We just feel we’re in a position as an organisation to step up and invest more in this area. We feel financially solid and strong to do that.

The secondary element to this is that one of the things that has struck me is that I can go into any of our Save the Children shops and I’ll see a supporter putting perhaps £5 across the counter, and they’ll stop and say ‘But you do work in the UK, don’t you?’. And the volunteer says ‘Absolutely, of course’. And then they give the gift. We’ve found supporters want to know that we do something here as well.