Raisely is an online fundraising platform for ambitious charities across the world. We empower thousands, like these 10 UK charities who are absolutely smashing their giving goals. You can raise more with Raisely too.
Parting is such sweet sorrow. Only, in this case, it doesn’t have to be. With Virgin Money Giving closing in November, charities are on the hunt for alternative platforms with the features they need.
International fundraising websites like Enthuse, JustGiving and Raisely are stepping in to fill the gap. But how do you know what’s right for your next campaign?
We’ve put together a list of 10 UK charities that successfully use Raisely to raise big funds for their worthy causes.
Between them all, they showcase some of our most innovative ideas:
- Beautiful DIY branded pages
- Powerful peer-to-peer templates (with built-in gamification)
- Activity tracking campaigns with Strava
- Automatic currency detection (so you can donate wherever you are)
- GiftAid enabled sites
Cast your eyes over these 10 campaigns to see these innovative features in action.
1. Ration Challenge UK by Concern Worldwide
This year Concern Worldwide saw 13,000 people sign up for their Ration Challenge..
For one week, challengers ate rations, raised money, and saved lives. The international organisation used Raisely’s peer-to-peer template to build a community around their cause.
Among other customisations, they harnessed our PDF receipting feature to create simple, elegant, emailable donation receipts.
Raisely showed its strength as one of the best fundraising sites UK has to offer with £847,863 raised.
2. Lions Series Charity Challenge
The Lions Series Legacy Fund is currently running their Charity Challenge – calling on rugby fans to unite to change lives.
With our Active Event Template, participants have the option to join the Lions’ or the Springboks’ team and walk, swim, cycle or run for charity.
The activity tracking feature allows fundraisers to record their kilometres using our integration with Strava.
They've also set up custom activity goals so fundraisers can choose their target for the campaign- challenge accepted!
3. Butterfly Relay by Solving Kids’ Cancer
Another campaign harnessing the power of activity to raise funds is Butterfly Relay 2021. Solving Kids’ Cancer uses our peer-to-peer fundraising template with participants walking, running or cycling as far as they can to raise funds for neuroblastoma.
Leader boards help ramp up the competition, while Team Profiles bring people together around the cause.
Over £25,000 has been raised so far.
4. The Bike Project’s Refugee Routes
Since 2013, The Bike Project has been giving away free bikes to refugees. This year they’re using Raisely’s Active Event template for their Refugee Routes Campaign.
Badges have been a key part of keeping participants engaged – the gamification feature is a nice acknowledgement of the donor’s hard work.
Any key milestones or badges you'd like to award are entirely customisable - but the most common faves are:
- your first donation,
- raising over $100,
- reaching 50% of your target,
- and, of course, reaching 100% of the goal! (Who doesn’t love celebrating a WIN like that?)
They’ve also included personal stories and achievements in their blog, inspiring the community and encouraging wider participation.
Over £94,000 has been raised with participants cycling more than 85,000 miles.
5. Scottish Mountain Rescue
Website design agency, Atitude, relied on Raisely as one of the best fundraising sites UK when implementing Scottish Mountain Rescue’s latest campaign. They used our Active Event Template, then took customisations to the next level.
Enabling automatic currency detection made it easy for donors to give in their country’s dollars, based on their geographic location. No Googling of currency conversion required.
Altitude also used custom fields on their sign-up form to gather specific information.
To get all the intel they needed from SMR supporters, they opted for fields like:
- Name
- Address
- T-shirt size
- Reason for fundraising
- Fundraising Currency
- Whether they wanted to subscribe to their newsletter.
6. Back Up Trust’s Spinal Circuit 2021
Using our peer-to-peer template, Back Up Trust saw incredible results for their cause. In March, fundraisers took on The Spinal Circuit challenge by running, pushing, or walking to raise funds.
Fundraisers raised a whopping £83,916, collectively covering a distance of 53,765.3kms.
Keeping track of 5252 people can be tricky, but Raisely made it easy with our built-in CRM that allowed tags to be created that kept people records organised.
They also built a number of custom reports to capture custom fields on their sign up and donation forms.
7. 10k for Nurses and Midwives by Cavell’s Nurses Trust
Amidst a horror year for frontline healthcare workers, 2020 was also the Year of the Nurse and Midwife. It was also the year Cavell’s Nurses Trust used Raisely’s Peer-to-peer Template to raise £52.7k.
10k for Nurses and Midwives saw 661 supporters signed up to achieve their version of a 10k challenge any way they liked. They could:
- Walk 10,000 steps
- Run, swim or cycle 10km
- Skydive 10,000 ft
- Sing or dance for 10,000 seconds.
Campaign organisers added custom CSS to make the design and style changes they wanted to truly align with their brand.
8. Step in Their Shoes by Concern Worldwide
This peer-to-peer campaign raised their funds step-by-step - literally.
Encouraging participants to hit 10,000 steps each day, Concern Worldwide raised vital funds for vulnerable refugees, who fled their homes due to persecution and conflict.
Working with agency partner SystemSeed, our squad helped customise the Step In Their Shoes campaign - integrating their website with Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Hotjar and Custom Javascript.
Connecting more fundraisers to their campaign, Concern Worldwide were able to raise over €20,000 this June.
9. Memory Walk 2021 by Alzheimer’s Scotland
This September, fundraisers are taking an important stroll down memory lane (along with lots of other lanes, streets and byways) for Alzheimer’s Scotland.
Adapting to Covid restrictions, Alzheimer’s Scotland’s Memory Walk’s peer-to-peer campaign pushed for a more personal approach.
Instead of a gathered, community walk, participants could do “your walk, your way” in a space that’s special to them - choosing their own date, time and location for the event.
To meet individual needs (in individual locations), Alzheimer’s Scotland developed a series of new resources.
Participants could access:
- Facebook connect groups
- Novelty masks
- Scavenger Hunt games
- Spotify playlists to walk to
- ‘Who I’m Walking For’ cards
- Facebook frames
- Facebook/Instagram stickers
- Facebook/Instagram Story content
- Banners for social media
In developing these digital assets with Raisely, Alzheimer’s Scotland kept their community connected and increased their profile in the public eye - raising a whopping £29.9k.
10. Warchild UK’s Afghanistan Emergency Appeal 2021
War Child is uniquely positioned as the only specialist charity for children affected by conflict.
After the recent removal of US Troops in Afghanistan, War Child staff have been working around the clock to help the local children and their families.
Helping them process and move forward after conflict, War Child offers protection, education, livelihood and advocacy to children and young people. To raise their maximum funds for maximum impact in Afghanistan, they used our Donation Form template to develop a GiftAid enabled site.
With Raisely, War Child could put their message across quickly - giving context to their cause, identifying impactful dollar handles and asking the essential questions with ease.
So far, they have raised over £29.4k.
Keen to see how Raisely can replace Virgin Money Giving?
If you’re looking for your next UK fundraising platform, Raisely can help.
Book a demo with our wonderful support team today.
"Raisely is an online fundraising platform for ambitious charities across the world. We empower thousands of charities across the world to take control of their revenue and improve the wellbeing of people and our planet."
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Co-founder and senior writer at Pencil + Crown. Experienced copywriter and workplace wordsmith, EmJ brings her love affair with language to every task.
