Gothenburg Homeless Aid is a voluntary organisation that helps the homeless, substance abusers and other vulnerable people.People are a bit more generous around Christmas and tend to give more to those less fortunate than themselves. That’s why Christmas is a very important time for the Gothenburg Homeless Aid, a time when a large proportion of the entire year’s funding is collected.But what can be done to stand out in the onslaught of mailings and Christmas cards? Actually, we created another Christmas card.

To draw attention to all the people with no fixed abode in Gothenburg we sent out the Christmas cards in envelopes addressed to: “Lasse Persson, a doorway/tunnel/stairwell, Hisingen (a part of Gothenburg)” and wrote the details of the actual intended recipient on the back of the envelope. Obviously the Swedish post office couldn’t find Lasse because he has no real address. The mail therefore had to be returned to the ‘Sender’ address on the back of the envelope with a post office stamp saying ‘Not known at this address’.The yellow label on the envelope not only highlights the fact that there are people in Gothenburg who have nowhere to live. It makes it virtually impossible for the recipient to simply discard it without opening it and seeing what it’s all about.

The yellow label on the envelope not only highlights the fact that there are people in Gothenburg who have nowhere to live. It makes it virtually impossible for the recipient to simply discard it without opening it and seeing what it’s all about. The Christmas card was sent to 20,000 people in Gothenburg, in the days before and after Christmas.The campaign raised SEK 1.6 million (around EUR 170,000), which is more than any other campaign for Gothenburg Homeless Aid. The result was also an increase by 60% compared to the previous Christmas campaign.