Fulfilling the potential of faith-based fundraising
Howard Lake | 27 January 2022 | Sponsored posts
Sponsored post
Jamia Al-Karam’s story proves that fundraising for a good cause is a powerful way to engage supporters during a faith holiday. Get inspiration from their story.
The beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic proved to be a challenging time for many charities, and faith-based fundraising is a good example of exactly that. Due to the restrictions imposed on socialising and in-person worship, many organisations lost out on regular cash donations from their devotees.
Jamia Al-Karam, a renowned Muslim institution catering for the educational and social needs of British Muslims, wasn’t an exception to this.
The charity’s plans to participate in a Tough Mudder event in 2020 to collect money for its Ramadan fundraising campaign had to be cancelled, due to the Covid-19 social restrictions in place at the time. As a result of this – and like most charities during that period – Jamia Al-Karam decided to switch its focus to online fundraising in order to drive some vital income.
30 Miles in 30 Days
The charity organised a ‘30 Miles in 30 Days’ virtual event through the Enthuse platform, encouraging people to run or walk the distance in a bid to get active and raise crucial funds during Ramadan, potentially as a vehicle for Zakat (an obligatory form of charity that all qualifying Muslims are expected to pay) or Sadaqa (charity given voluntarily in order to please God) if people desired.
The consistent, branded user experience offered by Enthuse appealed to the charity, who had previously been using Eventbrite and JustGiving for its fundraising efforts, which it found to be a very manual and disjointed process.
Jamia Al-Karam was conscious that if it was to run an event that was entirely virtual, the technology needed to be easy for the charity and its supporters to use. It was also crucial that the platform provided an engaging experience that was accessible to a wider audience, all while offering a consistent, uninterrupted donor journey.
Jamia Al-Karam found the Enthuse Fundraising and Events package to be exactly what they were looking for – as it gave supporters the opportunity to sign up and fundraise through a single platform branded to the charity’s cause. With a Strava integration to track activity progress and leaderboards on the fundraising page logging distance travelled, the charity was able to encourage healthy competition and inspire donations.
Raising 7x their initial goal
The results of the campaign speak for themselves. Not only did they manage to beat their first fundraising target of £5,000, raising x7 times their initial goal – they also managed to comfortably surpass many other milestones, with 147% more miles covered than targeted and 3x more fundraisers taking part than expected. The level of donations and supporter engagement made its ‘30 Miles in 30 days’ campaign one of its most successful to date.
Jamia Al-Karam’s story proves that fundraising for a good cause is a powerful way to energise a specific faith group. From hosting a community event to organising a themed run, the possibilities to engage the potential donors during faith holidays are endless.
If you’re looking for inspiration for your own faith-based fundraising campaigns check out the case study and find out exactly how Jamia Al-Karam achieved its success.
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.