Charity babies' blog gets national media coverage
Howard Lake | 4 January 2006 | News
A blog on Action Medical Research’s website by a father of twins born prematurely has boosted visits to the site and attracted nationwide media coverage for the charity’s fundraising campaign.
The story of the first year of twins Edmund and Aubrey Holdcroft, born at 25 weeks and 4 days and each weighing just 800 grams, has attracted visitors from around the world to the Action Medical Research website which hosts the blog.
Father Martin Holdcroft originally set up the blog to keep friends and family in touch with the babies’ development. As he became aware of the funding shortages in this area he started using the blog to support the charity’s Touching Tiny Lives campaign to boost funding for research to reduce the incidence of premature birth.
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Andy Proctor of Action Medical Research said: “Edmund and Aubrey are fantastic baby bloggers. They have to be the UK’s tiniest charity volunteers.”
Action Medical Research’s decision to make blogging available to supporters and families affected by the issues it works on has certainly paid off in this case. The charity gains compelling content and increased traffic: Web Editor Said Dajani
said that the first anniversary of the blog produced “a massive boost to our stats over Christmas”, with “a quarter of a million hits [sic] in one day alone”.
In addition the blog was featured in The Guardian, Independent, Times, Sun and most of the major regional press. The parents and twins were also interviewed on ITN and Sky News and the GMTV couch. The ITN news item even included a full-screen shot of the web page, complete with Action Medical Research branding of course, with an actor reading out an entry.
Many charity supporters and clients are using the web and tools such as blogging to share their experiences, and Action Medical Research to their credit have harnessed this trend for their mutual benefit.
While blogging is several years old, it is also clear from this success that charities’ use of the tool can still be regarded as newsworthy.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.