# British Red Cross raises more online than offline for tsunami appeal

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/01/07/british-red-cross-raises-more-online-offline-tsunami-appeal/
- Published: 2005-01-07T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The British Red Cross’ emergency tsunami appeal was launched at midday on 26 December,
the day of the disaster, and has raised over £3.3 million online.

Much of the total donated was raised during the first five days of the appeal during
the holiday period, showing how important it was to have the website available throughout
this period.

This is the first time that a British Red Cross appeal has raised more money online
than offline. This is even more significant because of the scale of the giving: 
the response was more than 10 times higher than that to the Bam earthquake a year
previously.

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Charity website specialists Baigent, who manage the website for the British Red 
Cross, called in staff from their holidays to provide additional capacity for the
site and donation facilities. The site, unlike those of some other charities, was
able to cope with the sudden and massive demand.

According to figures compiled by independent website traffic analysts Hitwise, the
British Red Cross website together with the Blue Peter Welcome Home Appeal site 
received 13.4% of all charity website visits during the week after Boxing Day.

Mark Astarita, Director of Fundraising for the British Red Cross said: “Traffic 
to the site increased dramatically overnight when we became the number one listing
on Google, with news sites (BBC, Yahoo, Sky) and major internet properties such 
as Amazon and Apple linking to us.

“The British Red Cross is at the forefront of emergency response to international
disasters, and with Baigent’s support we had the systems in place to raise £3 million
in under one week.”

The website is set to become an even greater part of the British Red Cross’ communications
and fundraising strategy in the coming year with a major redesign by Baigent, due
to be launched this month.

 * **[AMA handles £2 million of donations for tsunami appeals](https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/01/07/ama-handles-2-million-donations-tsunami-appeals/)**(
   7 January 2005)
 * **[Kintera reports on clients' success in online fundraising for tsunami appeals](https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/01/11/kintera-reports-clients039-success-online-fundraising-tsunami-appeals/)**(
   11 January 2005)
 * **[Crusaid's Walk for Life gains 50% more walkers via bought media](https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/01/12/crusaid039s-walk-life-gains-50-more-walkers-bought-media/)**(
   12 January 2005)