# BBC Radio 4 Christmas Appeal chooses Donorfy for CRM

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/12/08/90th-bbc-radio-4-christmas-appeal-chooses-donorfy-crm/
- Published: 2016-12-08T13:30:24+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**St Martin-in- the-Fields, the church on London’s Trafalgar Square, has selected
Donorfy as their new CRM solution and for handling donations during their current
annual Christmas appeal, which is supported by BBC Radio 4.**

With the appeal in its 90th year, BBC Radio 4 listeners have given almost £4,500,000
in the last two years to the church’s [Christmas appeals](https://www.smitfc.org/).
The money helps homeless people who receive shelter, food, aid and advice at The
Connection at St Martin’s. It also maintains a special Vicar’s Relief Fund which
makes thousands of one-off grants to vulnerable people across the UK.

![Woman handling BBC Radio 4 donations at a desk with a PC, in front of a BBC Radio
4 pop-up banner. Photo: BBC](https://wfay6x.infiniteuploads.cloud/2022/12/bbc-radio-
4-appeal.webp)

Photo: BBC Radio 4

Donorfy was chosen by the St Martin-in-the-Fields appeal team to handle the high
volume of donations that arrive online, by phone and in the post, with the aim of
achieving cost and time savings compared to their previous [CRM solution](https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/01/16/top-10-crms-charities-nonprofits/).

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Since it is cloud-based, it gives charities instant access to their donor database
from any device.

![Together for 90 years - marking the BBC Radio 4 Christmas Appeal's anniversary.](
https://wfay6x.infiniteuploads.cloud/2022/12/bbc-radio-4-christmas-appeal-2016.webp)

Tim Bissett, Director of the Christmas Appeal at St Martin-in- the-Fields, explains:

> “Donorfy have helped the St Martin-in- the-Fields Charity transform its fundraising
> from cottage industry to exemplary organisation. Their knowledge and experience
> has enabled us to not just migrate to a modern donor management system, but to
> a cost effective, integrated system that is right for the demands of the Christmas
> Appeal. There is no doubt that without Donorfy we would have taken far longer 
> to achieve this”.

CEO Robin Fisk explains how Donorfy is equipped to handle the demands of large scale
events like the BBC Radio 4 Christmas Appeal:

> “Donorfy was built to scale according to demand, and this appeal shows how effective
> that is. The built-in integration with the Stripe payment gateway, coupled with
> the sheer power that’s available from the Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure
> meant that Donorfy was able to process thousands of donations with ease as the
> appeal was broadcast on radio and on TV.
> “The Gift Aid is also collected automatically,
> which is a huge time saver. And as the data goes directly into the CRM it means
> the team at St Martins are able to get timely analysis and insights into the giving
> as the appeal happens.”

![Actor Hugh Dennis](https://wfay6x.infiniteuploads.cloud/2016/12/hugh-dennis-bbc-
christmas-appeal.jpg)

_Actor Hugh Dennis presents Songs of Praise from St Martin-in-the-Fields_

Launched in 2015 by charity technology experts Robin Fisk and Ben Brett, [Donorfy](http://donorfy.com)
is available to all UK charities. 

 * **[£500,000 donation made to BBC Radio 4 Christmas Appeal ](https://fundraising.co.uk/2022/12/19/500000-donation-to-bbc-radio-4-christmas-appeal/)(
   19 December 2022)
 * **[MAG BBC Radio 4 appeal is the highest performing this year](https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/11/17/mag-bbc-radio-4-appeal-highest-performing-year/)(
   17 November 2017)
 * **[How to make the most out of a BBC Radio 4 charity appeal](https://fundraising.co.uk/2012/09/27/how-make-most-out-bbc-radio-4-charity-appeal/)(
   27 September 2012)**