At Social AF, we know that a thriving community can transform a virtual challenge from a fundraising event into a shared experience. Over the past year, we’ve partnered with the British Heart Foundation to support three very different virtual fundraising campaigns, helping participants stay motivated, connected and engaged throughout their journey.
The results speak for themselves.
Three Challenges With Three Distinct Audiences
Each campaign was designed with a unique audience in mind:
Strong Women
A female-focused challenge designed to empower and inspire participants through movement, community and shared achievement.
Walk for Hearts
An accessible walking challenge aimed at a warm audience already closely connected to the cause, with many choosing to take part in memory of a loved one. Participants were highly motivated, passionate about supporting BHF and eager to engage with fellow fundraisers.
Dechox
An abstinence challenge, with a close link to the cause, where supporters were asked to give up chocolate for a month.
While the audiences differed significantly, one thing remained constant: community played a central role in the participant experience.
Taking a Different Approach
Traditionally, many Social Fundraising Challenges follow a journey of:
Advertisement → Facebook Group → Registration
But these campaigns took a different route:
Advertisement → Registration → Facebook Group
In our experience, this approach can often make community growth more challenging, as participants are asked to join the group after they’ve already signed up. Despite this, all three campaigns achieved exceptional membership and engagement rates.
How We Drove Community Growth
Success didn’t happen by chance. Together with the British Heart Foundation team, we embedded community touchpoints throughout the supporter journey. We did this through:
Strategic SMS Communications
One of the most effective tactics was using SMS messages to direct participants straight into the Facebook community. This alone generated an overnight increase of more than 600 group members.
Consistent Community Promotion
Community invitations weren’t treated as an afterthought. They were woven into campaign materials from the very beginning.
For example, Strong Women included a prompt to join the Facebook group on every page of the participant training guide, ensuring supporters were regularly reminded of the community available to them.
Multiple Stewardship Touchpoints
Participants received invitations to join the community early in their journey, with reminders reinforced across multiple communications and stewardship touchpoints.
By consistently highlighting the value of the group, supporters understood exactly how the community could help them succeed in their challenge.
The Results
Strong Women
- Group members: 6,000
- Peak active members: 70%
- Income target: £250,000
- Actual income: £352,000
Not only did the campaign exceed its fundraising target by more than £100,000, but it also maintained an exceptionally active community throughout the challenge.
Walk for Hearts
- Group members: 1,758
- Peak active members: 73%
- Income target: £650,000
- Actual income: £830,000
This highly engaged audience embraced the community experience, helping the campaign surpass its fundraising goal by £180,000.
Dechox
- Group members: 620
- Peak active members: 76%
- Actual income: £98,000
Despite having the smallest community of the three campaigns, Dechox achieved the highest engagement rate, demonstrating that community success isn’t always about scale.
Why Community Matters
From the outset, the British Heart Foundation team recognised that community is far more than a place for participants to post updates. It’s where supporters find encouragement, celebrate milestones, share challenges and build meaningful connections with others on the same journey.
When supporters feel part of something bigger, they stay engaged for longer, remain motivated to complete their challenge and are often more confident in their fundraising efforts.
Across all three campaigns, placing community at the heart of the participant experience contributed to some of the highest engagement levels we’ve seen within a virtual challenge portfolio.
Key Learning
The biggest lesson from our work with British Heart Foundation is simple:
Meet your audience where they already want to engage.
When supporters are given an accessible, welcoming space to connect with others who share their motivation, engagement will naturally follows. And when engagement grows, fundraising performance often follows too.
A well-managed community isn’t just a supporter benefit, it’s a powerful tool for driving participation, retention and fundraising success.
Bukkie Azeez, Senior Product Executive at the British Heart Foundation, said: “It’s been such a pleasure working with Social AF across our challenges. They’ve really taken the time to understand our audiences and what we’re trying to achieve, bringing so much creativity, energy and fresh thinking along the way. They’ve felt like a real extension of the team, and it’s been brilliant seeing the ideas we’ve worked on together come to life.”