Mission Christmas 2021
As the charity’s digital partner, we continuously work in tandem with the team to develop their fundraising platform, ‘GivingisEasy’ and to create new innovative features to support their fundraising. In 2021, we worked to take the Mission Christmas campaign to the next level with a first of its kind integration with Amazon.
The Challenge
The objective of the Amazon integration was to further improve how donors could gift Christmas presents to children who would otherwise receive none over the festive season. Each year this campaign makes a huge difference to the lives of disadvantaged children across the UK. The aim was to make it as easy as possible to donate money or to pick gifts. One of the challenges the charity often faced was a lack of control over the types of gifts and age groups covered. The integration would not only present the familiar shopping experience of Amazon but would allow the charity to create a tailored wish list that gifts could be chosen from.
The Solution
Beginning this project, we were in an excellent position having built the primary platform, however the Amazon integration was new territory, as it was the first time such an integration had been approved.
The main application is written in PHP with MySQL database and the implementation involved extensive work with the Amazon Business team building the custom APIs.
The solution enables users to choose gifts from an Amazon Wishlist or to donate a cash amount online. The wishlist is controlled by the Cash For Kids team from a custom dashboard, ensuring that a wide range of gifts and age groups are catered for. Amazon then fulfils the order and bulk delivers once a week to the collection warehouses boxless (not in Amazon boxes), both in an effort to lower environmental impact.
We wanted to create an experience for donors that felt simple to use, and rewarding at the same time. This exciting integration meant we could show donors exactly what they were giving. Our focus was to provide a clear pathway from start to end, so there were clear call-to-actions at each stage and the process was designed to work seamlessly on any device.
Recently the project received a further update in the form of an Alexa integration to make the feature even more accessible to donors.
We’re extremely proud of this first of it’s kind collaboration, as were the Amazon team, who said:
“The collaboration between Amazon Business, Cash For Kids and GCD has been a first time venture for us and one we’re pleased to say has been a huge success. The innovative API integration GCD developed with our team, enables easier, more interesting ways for supporters to donate to Cash For Kids at Christmas time, making sure disadvantaged children throughout the UK receive gifts as part of the Cash for Kids Mission Christmas Appeal. All these essential items are distributed directly to the Mission Christmas warehouses by Amazon UK. It’s something we’re delighted to have been part of. The GCD team were excellent to work with and have created a solution for Cash for Kids that has already made a huge difference, we’re excited to see what’s next.”
The Results
Since the solution launched in 2021, the Amazon wishlist has been put to good use in the Mission Christmas campaigns.
2021
Overall campaign level stats:
- Overall number of children who received toys 264,273
- Overall £ raised £14,330,120 (All Sources)
Same stats for NI region:
- 12,054 Children Received Toys
- £242,200 Raised (NOT including Gift List)
- 179 Drop Off Points
Amazon Gift List 2021:
- Total Number of Gifts/Units 27,269
- Sum of Price £406,077
- ‘Round-Up’ Total £10,587.10
- Gift Aid Potential £82,279.30
- Average Gift List ‘Donation’ Amount £15.68
- 7,167 Toys Purchased in Northern Ireland (Value of £108,565) – Enough for approx. 2,412 Children
2022
Overall campaign level stats:
- Overall number of children who received toys 260,528
- Overall £ raised £13,995,042 (All Sources)
Same stats for NI region:
- 13,516 Children Received Toys
- £759,082 Raised (NOT including Gift List)
- 157 Drop Off Points
Amazon Gift List 2022:
- Total Number of Gifts/Units 34,348
- Sum of Price £510,584.36 (up 25.08% yoy)
- Gift Aid Potential £93,209.57
- Average Gift List ‘Donation’ Amount £38.25
- 4051 Toys Purchased in NI
