Battersea Arts Centre

£81, 273 raised

Rising from the ashes with text + web giving

Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) is a local arts centre in Southwest London. Centered out of the old Town Hall BAC is renowned for its experimental work and close links to the local community.

On Friday 13th March 2015 a major fire at Battersea Arts Centre destroyed the Grand Hall and Lower Hall. Due to the flexibility of DONATE™ a fundraising campaign was launched and public donations were received before the fire had been put out by the emergency services.

Within one hour of the decision to raise over £1,500 donated and within twelve hours this grew to £10,500. Within four days over £78,000 had been raised from 2,553 donations.

How DONATE™ was used

Whilst DONATE™ offers both text and web giving an early decision was not to promote the ability to give £5 by text. Rather all donations were encouraged via the web channel in order to better communicate the impact of the fire and to encourage larger donations.

The DONATE™ team actively provided news through social media on the fundraise over the four days following the fire and there was significant coverage in national and local media. Interviews were given on London Live and Southwest trains announced the fire to commuters to encourage donations. Other activity included using celebrities to reach out to their supporters.

Whilst BAC provided a link to the DONATE™ platform from their website this only accounted for 15% of the donations with the remainder coming through DONATE™.

“A traditional emergency fundraising campaign using volunteers with donation buckets might have resulted in £5-10,000 in donations; at £50,000 in less than 3 days DONATE™ has moved us to a completely new level.” - Kane Moore, Head of Development

Key stats

Over the 13th – 1th March 62% of all traffic to the relevant DONATE™ page came through Facebook and Twitter with 63.5% of the traffic being from mobile and tablet devices. 87.5% of those who started the donation process on DONATE completed it. These statistics show the importance of using social media and providing a smooth and easy journey to give on all mobile device types.

83% of the donors added Gift Aid and 99% of the donors opted-in to receive ongoing contact from BAC. Over 40% of donors were under 35 years of age.