How Platypus helped Dementia UK acquire new community fundraisers online

10-second summary

We have worked with Dementia UK since 2019
Time for a Cuppa is a flagship community fundraising event for the charity and we’ve supported with paid social recruitment of fundraisers
We’ve brought in new fundraisers at a lower cost per acquisition than the target in both 2020 and 2021, with nearly 6,700 sign ups combined.

What was the challenge?

Time for a Cuppa is an annual event run by Dementia UK, encouraging people to share a cuppa and cake with family, friends, colleagues and their community and raise money for the charity.

Dementia UK has great success with Time for a Cuppa every year, but they knew that they had the potential to really improve online sign up rates.

What did we do?

Over the last three years, we’ve worked with the Community Fundraising, Events and Innovation team to encourage users to sign up over Facebook and Instagram. Through testing different audiences and sign-up methods, we’ve helped the charity attract committed supporters who have raised vital funds, bringing life-changing support to families affected by dementia.

We have monitored each campaign closely, focusing on imagery and copy that produced the best results.

Through a close relationship with Dementia UK, we’ve gained a deep understanding of its impact and work and collaborated to encourage people to raise funds to support and develop its dementia specialist Admiral Nurses.

For the 2021 campaign, we built on the lessons of 2020. We knew about the impact of the pandemic on online behaviour and made sure we were adaptable and tested accordingly.

What did we achieve?

So far, over 8,400 people have signed up to take part through our digital campaigns at a lower cost per acquisition than the target.

In our first year of running Time for a Cuppa, we achieved a CPA that was 87% lower than what Dementia UK had previously achieved. Since then, we have continued to achieve a lower CPA each year compared to Dementia UK’s initial target

We have also tested a virtual version of the campaign and hope to upscale the physical event next year, while testing new community fundraising events with the team at Dementia UK.

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