# British Gas Twitter campaign raises £100,000 for Shelter

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/12/08/british-gas-twitter-campaign-raises-100k-pounds-shelter/
- Published: 2016-12-08T20:43:15+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**British Gas has reprised its Christmas Twitter campaign on behalf of Shelter, 
donating £100,000 to the homeless charity in response to 100,000 shares of its hashtag
on Twitter.**

The original target was £25,000. To unlock a £1 donation from the energy provider
you simply had to tweet **#TweetForShelter**. British Gas employees introduced the
campaign on a video.

> Help raise £25k for [@Shelter](https://twitter.com/Shelter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> this Christmas. [#TweetForShelter](https://twitter.com/hashtag/TweetForShelter?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)&
> we’ll donate £1 per #. Tag a friend to pass it on. [https://t.co/QlDkAW75U5](https://t.co/QlDkAW75U5)
> [pic.twitter.com/SOZDePLt6M](https://t.co/SOZDePLt6M)
> 
> ## Advertisement
> 
> — British Gas (@BritishGas) [November 28, 2016](https://twitter.com/BritishGas/status/803146427866066948?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

British Gas sensibly published [terms and conditions](https://www.britishgas.co.uk/the-source/other/tweet-for-shelter-2016-tcs)
for this campaign. Other hashtag-to-donate campaigns have proved wildly popular 
with the [corporate donor ending up having to donate more than was planned](https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/02/25/aviva039s-twitter-campaign-raises-97774-24-hours-railway-children/).
Some terms and conditions can help limit the chances of that.

For example, British Gas stipulated that it was only open to Great Britain residents
aged 18 or over. In addition it stated that the campaign would run from 9am (UK 
time) on Monday 28th November 2016 until 11.59pm (UK time) on Sunday 4th December
2016 .

This year the campaign did remarkably well, with over 100,000 tweets of the hashtag.
Consequently the company decided to quadruple the size of its original donation 
to **£100,000** at the end of the one week campaign.

> THANK YOU to all who took part in [#TweetForShelter](https://twitter.com/hashtag/TweetForShelter?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw).
> We’re proud to be supporting [@Shelter](https://twitter.com/Shelter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> [https://t.co/xlvhw128uT](https://t.co/xlvhw128uT) [pic.twitter.com/IZAzmUC52K](https://t.co/IZAzmUC52K)
> — British Gas (@BritishGas) [November 29, 2016](https://twitter.com/BritishGas/status/803629639927091200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

Not surprisingly Shelter’s staff were delighted:

> This is phenomenal. [@BritishGas](https://twitter.com/BritishGas?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> have raised their donation from [#TweetForShelter](https://twitter.com/hashtag/TweetForShelter?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> to a massive £100,000! Thank you to everyone who shared! [https://t.co/M0iPFeJJji](https://t.co/M0iPFeJJji)
> — Shelter (@Shelter) [November 29, 2016](https://twitter.com/Shelter/status/803631423403872256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

Fundraising consultant John Thompson (originator of the [FiverGiver campaign](https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/09/27/firstfiver-charities-responded-simple-fundraising-idea/)
idea) wondered publicly whether, based on last year’s campaign result, British Gas
might just be persuaded to double its donation to £200,000, given the number of 
people who were continuing to retweet the hashtag after the £100,000 level had been
reached.

> People are still using [#TweetForShelter](https://twitter.com/hashtag/TweetForShelter?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> but I wonder how many tweets won't generate a £1? Will [@BritishGas](https://twitter.com/BritishGas?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> keep the campaign going to £200k? [https://t.co/Y20IF5FqvG](https://t.co/Y20IF5FqvG)
> — John Thompson, aka Johnny Five (@JTCHANGINGBIZ) [November 29, 2016](https://twitter.com/JTCHANGINGBIZ/status/803713261090635776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

 

## Last year’s campaign

In November 2015 [British Gas ran the campaign](https://fundraising.co.uk/2015/11/28/british-gas-raises-10k-for-shelter-in-twitter-hashtag-campaign/)
for the first time, aiming to raise £10,000 for Shelter in the same way. In the 
end, 16,564 people took part so British Gas rounded that up and donated £20,000.

> Last year [@BritishGas](https://twitter.com/BritishGas?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) set
> an initial £10k max donation for [#TweetForShelter](https://twitter.com/hashtag/TweetForShelter?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> 
> After 16,564 people took part it celebrated by donating £20k [https://t.co/XJGFXUbSkl](https://t.co/XJGFXUbSkl)
> — John Thompson, aka Johnny Five (@JTCHANGINGBIZ) [November 28, 2016](https://twitter.com/JTCHANGINGBIZ/status/803342874549088256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

 * **[Five tweets for fundraisers on 12 July 2017](https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/07/12/five-tweets-fundraisers-12-july-2017/)(
   12 July 2017)**
 * **[Twitter donation tool for those rage fundraising moments](https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/03/03/twitter-donation-tool-rage-fundraising-moments/)(
   3 March 2017)**
 * **[Twitter users donated £2.5m via JustGiving in 2013](https://fundraising.co.uk/2014/01/24/twitter-users-donated-2-5m-via-justgiving-2013/)**
