How Education Support grew their donor base with virtual events

The story

About Education Support

Founded in 1877, Education Support is the only charity in the country providing mental health and wellbeing support services to all education staff and organisations.

The charity prides itself in giving all educators – present and past – access to support services in and outside of their workplace. From grants and counselling to campaigning for better conditions, they help teachers and educators deal with stress and anxiety, career and money worries, and many other issues.

Education Support’s ultimate aim is to ensure that everyone working in education is respected, supported and resilient.

The challenge

Expanding an ageing supporter base

Education Support’s donor base was rather homogenous and stagnant, with a supporter profile mostly consisting of over 75-year-olds who donated through their pensions. In order to widen their supporter base and attract new, younger audiences, the charity decided to organise their first virtual event.

Having had previous experience with Everyday Hero, the charity was looking for a platform that offered flexibility for branded customisation, as well as the option of sending automated emails to engage supporters along their journey. Enthuse’s event registration and fundraising solution ticked all the boxes, including the ability to allow both individuals and teams to take part and track their progress through the Strava integration.

We were looking for a platform specifically for virtual events and other people in the sector recommended Enthuse. Good customer service was one of our top priorities, and they definitely delivered. Our ROI has been incredible – thanks partly to the Enthuse fees, which are very reasonable
Felicity Brown – Digital Fundraising Manager at Education Support

The more approach by Enthuse

Reaching and engaging new audiences

Education Support decided to time their virtual event ‘Strides Against Stress’ to coincide with Stress Awareness Month, celebrated in April. They challenged participants to walk or run at least 30 miles – a mile a day – throughout the month.

Choosing a current event theme that had a clear link to their cause helped the charity garner support

The charity found the team functionality to be particularly useful, as it allowed Head Teachers to sign up for the event and invite the rest of their staff to take part. This, coupled with their ability to easily share and promote the event on their social channels thanks to Enthuse’s event page functionality, allowed Education Support to keep the cost per acquisition very low.

Customer service was also high on Education Support’s list of requirements, as they were looking for a solution with sophisticated functionality and high potential for customisation – which made strong customer support a key priority.

By allowing teams to sign up for Strides Against Stress, participation quickly snowballed

The quality of assistance Education Support received from Enthuse’s Customer Success team exceeded their expectations, especially in comparison to other platforms. The charity was also impressed with Enthuse’s proactive and efficient approach to improving and upgrading product features.

It wasn’t just the team at Education Support that were satisfied with the user experience of the Enthuse platform – most fundraisers surveyed by the charity also found it easy to use (97%) and edit (87%).

The results

4x fundraising target achieved

With Strides Against Stress, Education Support managed to achieve their main objectives: engaging younger demographics and expanding their audience.

The majority of fundraisers who took part in the virtual events were aged between 30 and 50, bringing their average supporter age down by more than 25 years. Most importantly, the event attracted participants from all corners of the UK – and the majority of them hadn’t previously heard of Education Support. What’s more, by attracting new participants and providing them with a strong digital experience, they have been able to grow their supporter base, with 82% of those involved saying they were looking forward to doing the challenge again next year.

The event also outperformed the charity’s initial forecasts by a wide margin. Initially, they were set to raise £12k from 200 fundraisers, with a potential stretch target of £25k. In the end they managed to raise 4 times their target – a whopping £51k from 1.2k fundraisers, attracting more than 2.5k donors.

The team function was incredibly valuable – we’d have Head Teachers find our event on social media and sign up and invite their whole team. We had 160 teams taking part, some of them made up of 18 members! Participation grew exponentially from that point.
Felicity Brown – Digital Fundraising Manager at Education Support