310 Donors Against a Target of 200: A Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys Giving Day Story

The challenge

Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys is a state school, and its first Giving Day was run by a team of just one full-time and one part-time member of staff. The school had hosted a capital campaign in 2020/21, but there was no in-house fundraising history to build on, a development office that was still re-establishing itself, and a school budget that meant every cost had to be justified.

Getting the campaign off the ground meant pitching the idea to the Senior Leadership Team from scratch and winning their backing for a fundraising concept the school had never attempted before.

The timing brought its own challenges. The campaign landed at the end of term and the school year, when staff energy was already stretched thin, and safeguarding requirements placed real constraints on what could be run as an inclusive event. As a state school, TWGSB’s culture does not lend itself naturally to whole-school moments either: there is no tradition of central assemblies or strong sense of unified community to lean on.

The approach

Hubbub partnered with TWGSB to plan and deliver the school’s first Giving Day, a two-day online fundraising event on 9 and 10 July 2026, across an eight-month planning period.

Rather than focusing on one large appeal or a single named project, TWGSB used its first Giving Day to build breadth: growing its donor database, testing what resonated with its community, and creating what the team described as a “table” for the whole school to gather around. The philosophy was deliberately relationship-led rather than sales-led, a long-term, five-year view of fundraising as methodical growth rather than a quick fix.

What that looked like in practice:

• A clearly structured email strategy, delivered across 13 email drops, for a school with no prior email fundraising history
• Six donor challenges spread across the two days, to sustain momentum and give donors fresh reasons to give
• A digital donor wall, giving donors the option to be named publicly and to leave a personal message
• Hands-on consultancy throughout, alongside a campaign route map and templates the school’s team could build its own content on
• A “Colour Dash” race event, for which the team secured the permissions needed to involve 300 students, turning a potential safeguarding obstacle into one of the campaign’s most memorable moments

The results

TWGSB’s first Giving Day drew 310 donors, well above the original target of 200, raising close to £29,000 before Gift Aid and challenge funding are added. The final total is expected to pass £30,000 once these are confirmed.

• 310 donors took part, against an original target of 200
• All 6 donor challenges achieved, an excellent result for a first-time campaign and a sign of how well-targeted the challenge programme was
• 32% of homepage visitors went on to make a gift, well ahead of the 20% benchmark
• 305 donors gave online, at an average gift of £66 and a median gift of £30
• 75% of donors chose to appear on the donor wall, and 45% left a personal message
• 300 students took part directly in the “Colour Dash”

The most common amount given was £25, which accounted for 29% of all online gifts, and online donations ranged from £10 up to £1,000. Parent engagement proved particularly strong and more immediately viable than alumni engagement at this early stage, a useful signal for where to focus stewardship energy as the programme matures.

Why it worked

Email did the heavy lifting. 83% of visitors arrived via email, with a further 7% coming through social media, a strong result for a school with no prior email fundraising history. 97% of site visitors were based in the UK, with London and Tunbridge Wells generating the most activity.

The email performance behind that stands up against any campaign, let alone a first one. Across 13 email drops, TWGSB sent 72,093 emails with a 98.55% delivery rate. The average open rate reached 50.50% and the click rate 2.21%, against a 0.74% unsubscribe rate, comfortably ahead of best-practice benchmarks of 35%+ opens, 1 to 3% clicks and under 1% unsubscribes.

What makes the result particularly notable is the scale of the team behind it: one and a half employees, at a state school, with a limited budget and no prior Giving Day experience. There was no large development office, no dedicated marketing function, and no existing culture of asking for support to fall back on. The campaign is proof that a successful Giving Day does not depend on deep resources or an established fundraising infrastructure. It depends on a workable plan, genuine belief in the cause, and the persistence to bring senior leadership, staff and the wider community along.

The impact inside the school was as striking as the numbers. Staff described the sense of achievement afterwards as being like “a year-end high”, and the Giving Day proved, to the school and to itself, that its community could come together around fundraising and development, not just academics. The donor wall messages are already being planned for print and display in the staff common room, to boost morale.

What is next

TWGSB is already planning its second Giving Day for 2027. In the meantime, the focus is firmly on stewardship: thanking donors personally, sharing updates in smaller, more frequent instalments rather than one big announcement, and building out donor stories and quotes to use in future communications, including a planned autumn and winter newsletter that will show the community how funds raised are already making a difference.

The aim over the next twelve months is to turn a strong first Giving Day into a lasting habit, nurturing this year’s donors so that, by 2027, Giving Day is a recognised and trusted part of how the TWGSB community supports the school, not a one-off event.

For other state schools weighing up whether a Giving Day is for them, TWGSB’s first year is a clear answer: it is.