£126,477 from a Standing Start: A King Edward's School Bath Giving Day Story
King Edward's School Bath had never run a mass-participation digital fundraising event. Its first Giving Day, over two days in October 2025, raised £126,477 from 346 donors, unlocked all eight fundraising challenges and converted 26% of homepage visitors, ahead of the 20% sector benchmark.
“Working with Hubbub on our first Giving Day was a fantastic experience. The team provided excellent customer service throughout and were always at the end of the phone or quick to respond to emails whenever we needed support. The step-by-step process they took us through, particularly around audience segmentation and email drafting, gave us real confidence as first-time Giving Day organisers. The planning was so thorough that when the campaign went live, the two days largely ran themselves. It genuinely felt as though we had an extra member of the team. Hubbub were trusted advisers throughout, and Heather was brilliant to work with. We would have no hesitation in recommending Hubbub to other schools considering a Giving Day.”
The challenge
King Edward’s School Bath had never run a mass-participation digital fundraising event before. The school wanted its first Giving Day to unite parents, alumni, staff and the wider community around two causes close to school life: enhancing KES Bath’s outdoor spaces, and funding life-changing bursaries.
Community fundraising asks a lot of a school with no track record in the channel. It means building warm, opted-in audiences from a standing start, getting the right message to the right segment across current parents, alumni spanning several decades, staff and recent leavers, and generating enough momentum across just two days to make giving feel exciting and urgent rather than another appeal email in a crowded inbox.
KES Bath needed a partner who could plan and deliver the whole campaign end to end, without placing the burden on the school’s own small development team.
The approach
Hubbub partnered with KES Bath to design and deliver the school’s first Giving Day, a two-day online fundraising event on 15 and 16 October 2025, preceded by a “Coming Soon” launch on 17 September to build anticipation.
What Hubbub delivered:
- Planning and project management of the school’s first-ever Giving Day, from the “Coming Soon” launch through to the live two-day event
- Segmented email campaigns across current parents, Old Edwardian parents, Old Edwardian alumni, leavers’ gift donors and staff, each with tailored messaging
- A match-funding structure of £11,000 for the Bursary Fund and £50,000 for Enhancing Outdoor Spaces, to encourage giving and unlock additional funds
- Eight fundraising challenges across the two days, to sustain momentum and give donors fresh reasons to give
- A live on-the-day communications cadence: morning launch, lunchtime update, afternoon push and evening thank-you, across both days
- Social proof through a digital donor wall and global donor map, showing the reach of the KES Bath community
The results
KES Bath’s first Giving Day raised £126,477 from 346 donors, surpassing the school’s original goal and establishing the event as its first mass-participation community fundraising campaign.
- £126,477 raised in total from 346 donors, surpassing the original goal
- £40,431 plus Gift Aid raised online from 314 donors across the two days
- All eight fundraising challenges succeeded, together raising £10,500 and keeping momentum high throughout
- £29,313 raised for Life-Changing Bursaries from 237 donors, the campaign’s best-supported fund
- £10,998 raised for Enhancing Outdoor Spaces from 103 donors
- 26% conversion rate from the campaign homepage, ahead of the 20% sector benchmark
Parents made up the largest single donor group, and alumni donors were most strongly represented among those who left KES Bath in the 1970s, a sign of a multi-generational community turning out for the school’s first campaign of this kind. It was also encouraging to see staff give without any specific incentive attached.
Why it worked
Community fundraising works when people feel part of something bigger than a single ask, and the engagement data reflects that. Email open rates consistently cleared the 40% benchmark throughout the run-up and the live days, with several audiences reaching 70 to 90%. Unsubscribe rates stayed under 1% for almost every send, a sign of a genuinely warm and engaged school community rather than appeal fatigue.
The structure of the two days did the rest of the work. Matched funding gave donors a concrete reason to give generously. Eight challenges spread across both days created natural peaks in giving rather than one flat window. A steady cadence of on-the-day updates kept the campaign visible without overwhelming inboxes. The donor wall and global donor map turned individual gifts into something the community could see and share, reinforcing that this was a collective effort rather than a solitary ask.
There was also an on-site presence, with visible activities for parents, staff and pupils, which created ways to take part beyond donating.
What is next
85% of those who gave online left a phone number, a strong signal of a community open to a more personal follow-up conversation. A telephone appeal within the next twelve months could build on that momentum, converting Giving Day donors into regular, monthly supporters and providing a natural stewardship touchpoint for the school’s newest donors.
Repeated annually and paired with ongoing stewardship and other channels, this first Giving Day gives KES Bath a foundation for a sustainable, year-round regular giving programme. Their second Giving Day is planned for 16 and 17 March 2027.
Let's talk about your next campaign
A 30-minute conversation with someone who has run campaigns like yours, no hard sell.
Talk to a fundraising expert