Five of the best charity Christmas campaigns in 2018


It’s that time of the year when lots of charities run campaigns to raise awareness and/or funds for their cause. Christmas is one of the most important times of the year for charities to fundraise but it’s also a really crowded space. Last year you loved our Five of our favourite charity Christmas campaigns post so we’ve done one for 2018! Here are five Christmas campaigns that stood out.
BookTrust
When I was a kid, I adored reading (and still do!) so I absolutely love this campaign by BookTrust to send a festive book parcel to a child who is vulnerable or in care. It’s a really tangible ask and for only £10 you know that your donation could make a real difference to a child – helping them discover a love for books.

Action for Happiness
Who doesn’t love Action for Happiness’s monthly calendars? Whilst this isn’t a standalone Christmas campaign necessarily, we love how they encourage people to spread a little kindness over the festive season – especially on day 2, where they encourage people to support a charity or cause that’s close to their heart.

Mind
We all know that mindfulness is good for our mental health and doing something like making crafts not only helps with reducing stress and anxiety but can help you make new connections too. This year Mind ran a fundraising campaign called Crafternoon where they asked people to organise an afternoon of crafting with their friends, whilst raising money for Mind.

Refuge
1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence at some time in their life. When you think of Christmas, you think of happy times spent with loved ones but sadly domestic violence increases by 45% over the festive period. Refuge’s Christmas campaign looks like three lovely Christmas poems – until you read them from the bottom up. Powerful stuff.

Small Charities Coalition
Small charities make up 97% of the sector and are vital to their communities. Yet, when it comes to Christmas, people often support big charities because they’re able to send out direct mail, create slick videos or tv ads and have actually planned Christmas campaigns months in advance! So Small Charities Coalition called upon their members to submit short videos, filmed on their phones, to show the breadth of their work, their dedicated volunteers, staff and more. They then edited all the videos into a Christmas advert, to encourage people to donate to a local charity this Christmas. Isn’t it wonderful?
Christmas content doesn’t need to be expensive to create – but it does require some planning. We hope these five campaigns will inspire you to come up with something that will stand out in 2019!
Are there any other Christmas campaigns we should know about? Tweet us at @Lightful!
Latest articles

The Lightful team shares their reflections and hopes this International Women’s Day (IWD).


At Lightful, we believe that trust is a key foundation for our economy and society. Building Trust is at the heart of what we do at Lightful. Our three Co-Founders, Carlos Miranda, Vinay Nair, and Johnny Murnane, all arrived at this conclusion through quite different journeys. They had various backgrounds in impact investing, tech and consulting with the charity sector. They would work with incredible nonprofits, but when they engaged with them online, their websites and social media presence didn’t do justice to the power and impact of their organisation. If you visit a website with out of date information, or broken links etc, you are not filled with confidence that the organisation is trustworthy. You wouldn’t buy from a retailer with a website like that - so why would you donate money or promote the cause? It makes it feel a bit unreliable, and so lending your support or funds could be risky. This creates a real problem for nonprofits, limiting their reach and ability to raise unrestricted funds from everyday donors and others. They set up Lightful to tackle this key problem of building trust.

Related posts

One of the primary goals of Lightful's BRIDGE programme is to help small and grassroots nonprofits raise more funds through digital channels. Thanks to the tools and support we provide, participants' confidence in their digital skills grows dramatically. We also help them practice their new-found skills by running campaigns around key milestones, like Giving Tuesday, which provide real-world opportunities to test, learn and improve further.


Last week we’ve hosted a webinar with a very interesting panel sharing their key lessons learned about digital fundraising during lockdown.

See other ways Lightful can help
Contact us
Want to learn more?
Email Pumulo and start a conversation
