Small Charity Week case study #4: Birthday Boxes and Social Media

Small charity Emilia's Little Heart Foundation launched a special Birthday Box project last year, drumming up vital support for the project on social media with clear and simple messages. Founder Claire Webb explains how.

Established in October 2011, Emilia's Little Heart Foundation provides items for play and pain distraction for children in hospital in Kent and the Evelina London. With an annual income of £35,000, our current goals are to provide reward stickers, bravery certificates and arts and crafts materials. We also provide for larger projects such as hospital playrooms and outdoor areas.

The birthday box project

Last year, we embarked on a project for children who have to spend their birthday in hospital. We came up with the idea of creating a ‘birthday box’ filled with presents, cards and balloons, which would be given to the child by their nurse or play specialist to help make the experience of being in hospital on their birthday a more positive one.

At the same time, the FSI was running its Small Charity Week social media competition. We were nominated and then shortlisted, making it to the final four shortlisted charities in our region. It spurred us to be really proactive in promoting the project on our social media channels. It was the best way in which we could very quickly communicate to our supporters what were were intending to achieve - and they could respond quickly too. Furthermore, the message could be shared easily with our supporters' friends and networking groups.

Simple solutions on social media

The birthday box idea was such a simple and tangible proposition, and one that our supporters could see would have a huge individual impact on a child emotionally during their hospital stay. It was very easy to convey what we were trying to achieve in just a few words on our social media channels. Although we didn’t win the competition, putting the effort into spreading the message in this way really helped us to raise our profile and gain new supporters. Many people who voted for us had not known of us before - and many of the new supporters we gained have now gone on to give us their support with other events and projects.

Today, we use predominantly social media to communicate with our supporters, and have found that this has increased our reach dramatically. It’s proved to be a key marketing and engagement tool for us, and this year we’re on track to triple our income.

Claire Webb is founder and chair at Emilia’s Little Heart Foundation