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Case Studies Church DDB

St Augustine’s Church

St Augustine's Church, Londonderry

"The service from Dona is exceptional and our fundraising has increased since installing. Our challenge was international visitors not having currency to donate so our ability to collect donations via Dona has increased dramatically."
Drew White
Treasurer

£7,000+ |Total fundraised on Dona since February 2023

Learn more about St Augustine's Church

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Popular Support Technology

Plan Your 2026 Fundraising Calendar

Plan Your 2026 Fundraising Calendar

Fundraising is always most successful when it’s planned. Whether you’re a charity building a year-long engagement strategy or a place of worship keen to rally congregants to support your various causes, mapping out key dates in advance means more momentum and ultimately more impact. Don’t miss out on prime opportunities for fundraising. Seasonal occasions, from awareness weeks to big national events, give your campaigns natural hooks to drive giving and deepen supporter engagement.

At Dona Donations, we help charities supercharge that planning with reliable tools: offline, WiFi and 4G-powered giving so supporters can donate anywhere; multiple funds to segment campaigns by theme or season; leave-a-message features to capture heartfelt stories; and a free online giving page to make donating simple and shareable. These features let you tie your seasonal plans into seamless fundraising journeys that spark generosity long before each big moment arrives.

Fundraising Campaign Opportunities in 2026

Inspire early enthusiasm with pre-event campaigns encouraging supporters to set targets, share training stories, and raise funds. Use Dona’s multi-fund features to create separate campaigns for each event.

Use social sharing features and leave-a-message walls on your Dona online giving page to gather stories from community hosts, volunteers, and participants.

These moments are ideal for retargeting past supporters, launching matching-gift pushes, and unlocking generous tax-year giving.

Awareness Days and Themed Weeks

Multiple social awareness days throughout the year provide hook days for social campaigns and engagement posts. Integrate campaigns around key awareness moments to tie a theme to your cause and reach broader audiences:

Why it matters: Gender equality, women’s rights, empowerment. All themes widely recognised with strong campaigning potential around inclusion, employment, wellbeing, and charity support.

Why it matters: A major UK-wide celebration recognising the vital contribution of volunteers across all sectors. Perfect for highlighting volunteer stories, recruitment, training, celebration events and promoting community impact.

Why it matters: An international day recognising the courage and dedication of humanitarian workers worldwide, and the communities they serve. Ideal for raising awareness of global crises, sharing impact stories, and engaging supporters in campaigns that make a real-world difference.

Children’s rights and welfare: ideal for charities focused on youth, education, protection and wellbeing.

Why it matters: A dedicated week celebrating and raising awareness about charities in the UK, which is excellent timing for fundraising appeals, partnership campaigns, and storytelling about your impact and the power of giving.

By linking your content calendar with fundraising triggers, supporters have clear, emotionally resonant reasons to give and gain inspiration from feeling part of a wider movement of generosity.

Major Charity Marathons and Sports Events

Sporting events provide excellent opportunities to galvanise your supporters and teams into fundraising for your cause. With increased publicity, they also enable you to gain wider coverage and provide a clear motivation for donating.

Pre-event sponsorship can be encouraged by creating custom funds on your donation terminals or free Dona online giving page.

While Dona’s Digital Collection Plate makes it easy to fundraise portably by enabling you to collect donations offline without any internet, Dona also provides a QR code that links to your free online giving page, allowing participants and sponsors to donate on the go or via team campaigns.

Events such as these are perfect occasions to capture donations wherever supporters are, indoors or outdoors, online or offline.

Why these events matter:

  • Encourage team and peer-to-peer campaigns.
  • Give sponsors a tangible way to support participants when portable and onsite donation terminals are present.
  • Provide instant, frictionless giving through QR codes on printed materials, banners, or race packs.

Conferences and Networking for Fundraisers

Planning ahead for 2026? Attending key fundraising conferences is a smart way to gain fresh ideas, learn from sector experts, and build valuable connections. These events provide inspiration for campaigns, insight into emerging trends, and practical strategies to grow income throughout the year.

A dedicated fundraising conference offering inspiring sessions and practical insights on donor retention, digital tools, and more. Plenty of opportunities to network with peers and sector experts.

Why attend: Fresh ideas for income growth, real fundraising case studies, and meaningful networking.

 

An annual gathering for charity leaders and fundraising professionals focusing on financial sustainability, inclusive leadership, and digital transformation.

Why attend: Access strategic talks, peer learning, and practical case studies to strengthen your fundraising efforts.

 

Hosted by the Chartered Institute of Fundraising, this annual gathering brings the sector together for learning, networking, and fresh ideas. The 2026 theme is Small Shifts, Big Impact.

Why attend: Connect with peers, explore new approaches, and gain actionable insights for your fundraising campaigns.

 

A broad charity sector event covering resilience, innovation, leadership, and future success, with networking built into the programme.

Why attend: Gain big-picture insights relevant for fundraisers, CEOs, trustees, and operational leads.

Attending these conferences is a great way to shape your fundraising year, uncover partnership opportunities, and discover creative strategies that can drive results.

Creative Ways to Use Dona in Your 2026 Planning

Here’s how you can maximise each tool with Dona throughout the fundraising calendar:

1. Multiple Funds

Set up distinct funds for each seasonal moment: e.g. Spring Run Series, Summer Coffee Mornings, Giving Tuesday Appeal. This helps your supporters see progress against specific goals and increases transparency.

2. Free Online Giving Page

Craft a central hub for all your 2026 giving. Update it throughout the year with themed banners and campaign blocks. Promote it on social and email to capture gifts even when you’re not actively campaigning.

3. Leave a Message

Encourage donors to share personal dedications, stories, and shout-outs. These messages create community and enrich your fundraiser content. Ideal for replaying around awareness days or event recaps.

4. 4G and Offline Mode

Capture funds on the move at sponsored runs, coffee mornings, walks, and community meetups, even where internet access is limited. Great for bucket collections or event-day giving.

5. QR Code for Mobile Donations

Generate a unique QR code linked to your online Dona giving webpage to include on posters, flyers and newsletters. Supporters can simply scan with their phones to donate instantly, making it easier than ever to capture spontaneous or on-the-go contributions and share your fund campaigns widely.

6. AI Forecasting and Insights

Dona provides AI forecasting with Antonia. These are insights and improvement tips based on your organisation’s unique historical data to help you learn what’s working and where you can make improvements to boost future income. Learn from past successes so you can tweak and optimise for next year’s fundraising events.

Tablet screed showing antonia who is donas virtual ai assistant for fundraising

Final Tips for Success

  • Start early: Year-ahead planning lets supporters feel part of a journey, not just a moment.

 

  • Match events to messaging: Tie your storytelling and campaigns to the why behind each event and Dona fund.

 

  • Use every tool: Integrate your Dona online pages, social stories, and offline capabilities to meet supporters wherever they are.

Call Sales: 0203 488 5038

Call Support: 0203 488 8095

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Categories
Case Studies DDB

St Mary Magdalen’s Church, Brighton

St Mary Magdalen Brighton Social

St Mary Magdalen Church, Brighton

St Mary Magdalen’s is a beautiful historic church in the heart of Brighton, serving a diverse and vibrant local community. Since 2019, the church has worked with Dona Donations to modernise their fundraising and make giving easier for everyone who walks through their doors.

As a traditional church in a busy urban setting, St Mary Magdalen’s wanted to provide a simple, cashless way for visitors and congregants to donate. They began fundraising with Dona using the very first versions of Dona’s Digital Collection Plate terminals.

Due to intermittent WiFi connectivity within the building, the church faced occasional disruption to donation processing and were no longer maximising their fundraising potential.

So, in 2025, St Mary Magdalen’s upgraded to Dona’s latest Digital Donation Box, designed to operate seamlessly both online and offline. This upgrade ensured every donation could be captured securely, even when WiFi connectivity was unreliable.

The larger screen and improved user experience made donating faster, clearer and more engaging for supporters, while the offline capability gave the church complete peace of mind.

The results were immediate and transformational. With a reliable, modern donation solution in place, St Mary Magdalen’s can now focus on what matters most.

"It's so easy to use – fast and simple, it processes so quickly. Our donations went from £0 to £1000 in the first month, it's amazing!"
Review of the Digital Donation Box
St Mary Magdalen, Brighton

£37,000+ |Total fundraised on Dona since 2019

£10.10 |Average donation value 

44% | Donations given with Gift Aid

Learn more about St Mary Magdalen

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Categories
Case Studies

Nidderdale Museum

Nidderdale museum

Nidderdale Museum

Nidderdale Museum relies on visitor donations to support the preservation of Pateley Bridge’s social history. By introducing Dona contactless donation technology, the museum has been able to modernise its fundraising while keeping the experience simple for volunteers and visitors alike.

The museum first adopted Dona during the COVID pandemic, when cash payments and traditional entry fees were no longer practical. Dona provided a reliable, easy-to-use alternative without the limitations of a full point-of-sale system, which wouldn’t have been able to accommodate Gift Aid.

Simple for volunteers to use
Dona’s tap-to-donate interface allows volunteer stewards to manage entry fees and donations confidently, even when they are not on duty regularly.

Faster admin and regular payouts
Automated processing and regular payouts reduce administration time and help improve cashflow, allowing staff to focus on running the museum.

Increasing donations on-site and online
Visitors can donate using contactless terminals inside the museum or via online donation links on the museum’s website, making it easy to give at any point in their journey.

Reliable service with clear reporting
With dependable connectivity, responsive customer support, and clear data and reporting, Dona gives the museum full visibility over its fundraising performance.

Dona has become a trusted part of their daily operations, helping them raise significant funds through simple, contactless and Chip & PIN giving.

“We introduced Dona during the COVID pandemic as we were able to open up the Museum with certain restrictions, but not able to take money for entry fees. We had previously considered using a card payment system, but our volunteer stewards could well have had problems with a full system that involved a Point of Sale screen and data entry as they are not regularly on duty. Finding a system that just involved tapping a button on a screen made it viable and it has proved to be an excellent system.

The Customer Service team have always been very responsive and helpful, enabling us to use the system every day, and the connection with the payment processor works well so that weekly payouts are received. Apart from taking entry fees within the Museum, visitors also tap the screen to make additional donations in-house, as well as using links on our website to send us further gifts. Having processed around £50,000 since we started working with Dona, we are delighted with the service.”
Nidderdale Museum Contactless Charity Fundraising Machines
Learn more about Nidderdale Museum

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Categories
Case Studies DDB Religious Organisations

ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Manor

ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Manor


“The Dona machines have been very handy for Bhaktivedanta Manor as people are able to donate any time of the day with their cards and phones, and don't have to wait for our desks to be open.”
Yogendra Sahu

ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Manor is one of the most significant Hindu temples in the UK and a major centre for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Donated by George Harrison of The Beatles in 1973, the Manor serves as a vibrant spiritual and cultural hub for the Vaishnava community.

The Manor welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, making effective fundraising essential to supporting its expanding programmes.

The Manor’s team approached Dona in 2022 in search of a more efficient, modern, and visitor-friendly method of collecting donations. Traditional cash-based giving had become less effective as more visitors moved towards digital payments. The Manor needed a solution that:

  • Made giving easy and intuitive
  • Integrated seamlessly with the visitor experience
  • Encouraged Gift Aid, significantly increasing the value of donations
  • Provided transparent reporting for internal teams
  • Could cater reliably for consistently high numbers of visitors and peak periods

Since adopting Dona machines in 2022, Bhaktivedanta Manor has seen outstanding fundraising success, increasing the number of donation machines to 11 units as of December 2025.

The ability to capture nearly half of all donations with Gift Aid demonstrates how intuitive digital giving can dramatically enhance fundraising efficiency.

Digital giving has not only increased revenue but has also improved donor experience, allowing visitors to contribute quickly and meaningfully during their spiritual visit.

ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Manor’s partnership with Dona is a strong example of how religious and cultural institutions can thrive by embracing digital fundraising tools.

£1.5 million + |Total fundraised on Dona since 2022

£11.70 |Average donation value 

49% | Donations given with Gift Aid

Learn more about ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Manor

Call Sales: 0203 488 5038

Call Support: 0203 488 8095

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