How Brain Tumour Research Grew Their Event 85% with Social Media
Discover how the charity mastered social media and improved its results for its fundraising events in 2024.
Brain Tumour Research raised 85% more year over year and raised £320 per JustGiving Fundraising Page for its 2024 virtual fundraising event. But how? By paying attention to the keys to social fundraising success.
Knowing this can make your charity’s fundraising simpler, faster, and way more efficient – and Brain Tumour Research used this knowledge for two successful fundraising events in 2024.
First, let’s look at the keys to social fundraising success (or skip straight to the charity’s story).
The 3 keys to social fundraising success
In our recent webinar, GivePanel shared the three factors of social fundraising success. And they might not be what you expect.
In fact, they’re really simple:
- A frictionless user experience.
- The ability to nurture interested participants with personalised comms.
- Complete control over data.
When it comes to taking part in fundraising challenges on social media, all people want is for it to be simple, smooth, tailored, and secure.
Social fundraising doesn’t have to mean Facebook Fundraising
Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world, with over 3 billion monthly users. Facebook Fundraisers are popular, and the platform works well for attracting fundraisers using ads, Groups, and Pages.
But with Meta’s recent decision to discontinue its fundraising tools in the European Economic Area (EEA) as of 1 July 2024, charities are looking for alternatives.
Especially since Facebook fundraising alone doesn’t meet the above criteria of social fundraising success (and doesn’t have the best track record for privacy and security).
But is there a way to still reach your supporters on Facebook…but let them raise money using a platform they prefer? There is – and Brain Tumour Research did it with two fundraising events in 2024 
How Brain Tumour Research met their goals by going beyond Facebook
Brain Tumour Research launched two virtual fundraising events in 2024.
In the webinar, they told us how they needed a way to keep their fundraising simple, only send one stream of emails, and collect all their supporter data in one place.
Their next step is what made all the difference: they used JustGiving’s GivePanel integration.
Brain Tumour Research knew their community is mostly on Facebook. But they also knew that, compared to Facebook, people prefer JustGiving to raise money (and raise 37% more).
So Brain Tumour Research launched their two events to their supporters with a Facebook Fundraising Challenge.
The major differentiator was that, with the JustGiving x GivePanel integration, participants automatically had a JustGiving Fundraising Page created for them the instant they signed up, which they could then use to raise money instead of Facebook.
This also gave the charity’s team some time back, since they didn’t need two separate teams to manage Facebook and JustGiving.
“Our community team would steward our JustGiving fundraisers, and our events team would steward our Facebook fundraisers. Now, all that’s done in house, by one team, with the same answers from a familiar point of contact. It gives our supporters a more personal experience and helps us build relationships with them.” MICHELLE BATSON, BRAIN TUMOUR RESEARCH
10,000 Steps a Day in February
With their annual 10,000 Steps a Day in February virtual fundraising event, the charity asked their supporters to have fun and get fit. Participants were encouraged to complete 10,000 steps each day during the month, in any way they want, wherever they are, with the money raised going toward the fight against brain tumours.
The results blew them away! Participants averaged £233 per JustGiving Fundraising Page and raised £143,000 overall, with 62% of the money raised coming from JustGiving vs Facebook.
- £143,100 raised
- £233 raised per JustGiving Fundraising Page (vs £151 raised per Facebook Fundraiser)
- 62% more raised on JustGiving vs Facebook
200k in May Your Way
And with their brand new 200k in May Your Way virtual fundraising challenge, the charity got their community walking, running, cycling, swimming, or a combo to complete 200 kilometres during the month, whether on their own or on a team.
This event grew 85% vs the event from the previous year, and the income generated from JustGiving was 202% higher than that of Facebook!
- 85% more raised year over year
- £320 raised per JustGiving Fundraising Page
- 202% more raised on JustGiving vs Facebook
What’s next for social fundraising?
The social fundraising future will hinge on preference: reaching potential supporters on social channels like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, but giving them the option to raise money on the platform they choose.
So far in 2024, charities have used GivePanel to generate £1.3 million in donations, and they have seen a higher percentage of fundraisers choose to use JustGiving over Facebook.
And looking ahead, GivePanel have got their sights set on…
- Getting even more people raising money with SMS journeys
- Boosting the average raised per participant with email journeys for leads
- Using ad optimisation tools to reduce cost-per-active fundraiser
- Extending one-click JustGiving Fundraising Page creation to Instagram
Who doesn’t want to improve their supporter experience, raise more money, and finally see what channels work best?!
Check out how GivePanel can help you do all the above and shout out with any questions because our team is here and happy to help!
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