# Is Save the Children missing a trick with Kroo Bay?

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/06/25/save-children-missing-trick-kroo-bay/
- Published: 2008-06-25T07:41:05+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

If you can’t take donors to see your programme ‘in the field’, then perhaps creating
a virtual experience is a substitute. That at least is the thinking behind Kroo 
Bay, a mini-site created by Save the Children UK, which takes you into the life 
of a community in Freetown, Sierra Leone. www.savethechildren.org.uk

The site allows you to take in a 360 degree panorama of the slum, and to hear the
stories of some of the residents who appear before you. Some of these stories are
conveyed through video.

Rachel Palmer from SCF is talking about the site at a One World peer learning event
on 2 July (contact an********@******ld.net for details.)

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When I was first emailed about the site I thought it was pretty cool. I donated 
£15 to see what would happen, and selected the option of email as my preferred communication
medium. By return I recieved a nice thank you email – automatically generated. And
since then? Nothing.

Maybe I’m a one off. Perhaps some glitch meant I fell out of the system. These things
can happen. But if other donors have had a similar experience then SCF is missing
a trick. Great looking websites which win awards don’t translate into donations 
unless contacts are followed up, involved, and asked to give again. Is my experience
with Croo Bay unique or does anyone else have a similar story?

 * **[22% of broadband users expected to be active in virtual worlds within ten years](https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/06/25/22-broadband-users-expected-be-active-virtual-worlds-within-ten-years/)**(
   25 June 2008)
 * **[Online social networks as fundraising tools](https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/07/10/online-social-networks-fundraising-tools/)**(
   10 July 2008)
 * **[UK Fundraising front page as a Wordle](https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/07/14/uk-fundraising-front-page-wordle/)**(
   14 July 2008)