The best crowdfunding campaigns of 2021

The growth of online fundraising platforms has significantly helped charity supporters to create engaging and entertaining ways to raise money.

 

These often go far beyond the traditional sponsored walk and show charity supporters are excelling at keeping a close eye on the news and garnering support from the media.

 

These skills are seeing many of their campaigns go viral and far exceed fundraising targets.

 

Perhaps the best example of this in 2020 was the late Captain Sir Tom Moore’s record-breaking walk around his garden to raise money for NHS Charities Together.

 

According to online fundraising platform JustGiving, fundraising to support communities impacted by COVID-19 raised £180m in 2020.

 

This year charity supporters have taken Captain Tom’s drive and enthusiasm to ensure their online fundraising campaigns also capture the public’s imagination.

 

Here we look at two particularly innovative crowdfunders in 2021.

 

 

Flying Farage fundraiser

 

In July the Royal National Lifeboat Institution found itself embroiled in a media storm following criticism from former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who accused the charity of becoming “a taxi service for illegal immigration”. The right-wing politician made the comments around the charity’s lie saving operations in the English Channel.

 

The charity says it was “overwhelmed” with support following Farage’s comments, including from one of its supporters Simon Harris. Harris decided to tap into the heightened publicity by launching a Go Fund Me crowdfunder to buy the charity a new hovercraft, to be named the ‘Flying Farage’.

 

He set an ambitious target of £100,000, but within days this was topped with donations from supporters and following media publicity for Harris’s inventive attempt to raise funds.

 

By September the figure now stands at £121,990, thanks to donations from 8,500 people. The Go Fund Me campaign has been shared more than 28,000 times and now has 11,000 followers.

 

Harris has since tweaked his campaign after speaking with the RNLI, as a hovercraft is usually used in areas other than the English Channel that have mud flats. Also he has acknowledged that naming the boat after Farage may be “tricky”, after speaking with RNLI volunteers.

 

In a message to Harris, the RNLI has said that his fundraising “which has been supported by so many generous people” will instead “help cover the costs of fuel for stations” across Southeast England.

 

“This means those who supported this fundraiser are helping us with our mission to save everyone, each time a lifeboat launches,” added the charity.

 

The campaign from Harris proved so successful he set up another fundraiser, to support Afghan families in the UK fleeing the Taliban regime.

 

This is called ‘Help Are Own First’ and has been deliberately misspelled to trick xenophobes on social media to donate cash to support Afghan refugees. This latest cheeky fundraiser also attracted widespread media publicity and has so far raised more than £32,0000 to help Community Agents Essex to support Afghan families arriving in the area.

 

As Harris points out: “It’s just dawned on me that in August 2021, I raised more than £150,000 to help migrants attempt to cross The Channel and Afghan families arriving in the UK.”

 

 

Cheeky moped ride across Britain

 

Sponsored journeys from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’Groats in Scotland have been a staple of charity fundraising for several years.

 

In 2021, Paul Taylor decided to improve on the theme to attract attention and raise money for the Institute of Cancer Research in memory of his friend, Alexis Leventis, who lost his life to cancer last year at the age of 55.

 

For Taylor’s journey, he has travelled the length of Britain in August 2021 by moped only stopping at towns and places with silly or rude names.

 

When he launched his ‘From Shitterton to Twatt” fundraiser on JustGiving earlier this summer he set a target of £1,800. But following widespread publicity in the national media the total pledged soon raised to £15,000 ahead of his ride.

 

Now completed, the total stands at more than £23,000 as of September 2021, a mammoth 1290% above his original target. So far more than 1,100 people have contributed to the campaign.

 

During his journey he visited places such as Happy Bottom Nature Reserve, Titty-Ho, Slack Bottom Road, Booze, Pity Me and Twatt in the Orkney Isles. The return leg saw him visit Dull, Cow Ark, and Bell End, among other cheeky places.

 

“I was sick of cancer taking the lives of so many wonderful people and felt I had to do something to help beat this awful disease,” said Taylor.

 

“I thought this trip was a suitably ridiculous place to start and as Alexis was a motorcyclist as well as a car nut; two wheels was not only appropriate but made it more of an adventure.”