Where does your story begin?

Notting Hill & Ealing High school is all girls London day school from Reception through to Year 13, and we’re part of the GDST family of 25 schools. In the academic year 2023-2024 we celebrated our 150th anniversary. 

October 2022 was the first time in our history that we had asked parents to donate to the school. We have no big endowments from our alumnae and no sustained history of supporting bursaries. So our engagement was from a standing start from that perspective. We launched our fundraising with the intention of setting up three transformational bursaries, from different segments of our communities:

• The OGA Alumnae 150th Anniversary Bursary - from the alumnae, their parents, staff and governors
• The Parents’ 150th Anniversary Bursary - from our current parents
• A 6th form bursary - from our leaving parents

We had such a great response but we were a little short on the first two, which we wanted to focus on for our first Giving Day, as we reached the end of our 150th Anniversary year. 

What were your fundraising goals?

We had three main goals: 

1. To raise the level of engagement of all communities, alumnae, staff, former staff, former parents, etc. and increase donors. Following Hubbub advice, we went for a target of 250 donors.
2. To hit the financial targets to support the remaining two new bursaries
3. To embed the long term culture of giving for the future, make not this just a ‘one hit wonder’, but part of what we do as a school  

Why did you decide to run a Giving Day and work with Hubbub?

We were introduced to the concept through IDPE and it fitted our objectives. Our marketing team was impressed by the attractiveness and modernity of the website. Whereas for me I felt I had a good connection with the Hubbub team, I felt I could trust them and talk to them, whilst expecting they would be honest with me. This was important to me as I am the only person tasked with development and had to deliver the Giving Day on two days a week alongside my teaching. 

Did you achieve your goals?

Yes! We had 271 donors! So I have massively increased the number of people that I'm in direct contact with, and so next year it will be all about building our regular giving campaign. If I hadn’t been able to do the Giving Day to get more people into the pool I would remain reliant on a small number of people ongoing. This now enables me to spread the load and give my donors a sense of shared success that they really enjoy. Next year there will be even more people wanting to be involved and be part of something bigger.

We had an official target of £30,000 whereas we were really hopeful to beat this, we actually raised almost £50,000! 

In terms of going back to my goal of the long-term legacy from this day, I feel people are more open, happy, confident and proud of their philanthropy. That's a really good thing for them, for their kids and for the school as a whole.

What was your experience of a Giving Day with Hubbub?

I worked closely with the Hubbub Account Manager and Delivery Lead to deliver the Giving Day. Having authentic people in the team who want the best for me, the project and campaign - it’s the strongest endorsement I can give. They are definitely alongside you and with you every step of the way and that was massive. 

So many times they were just fabulous, updating when I asked, often within minutes. The support for my ideas was impressive, it was never ‘no’ it was sometimes ‘I need to check’, but they’d try, they’d give it a go.

The team were creative and came up with ideas during the project. They also used the data to inform what to do, reacting and changing the plans when needed.  

The donor wall provided a really open and honest celebration of collective support. As people started sharing nice things and the alumnae spoke to each other, that evolved during the Giving Day.

What advice would you give others considering running a Giving Day?

Do what they advise to do… start a year before! 

Have faith, it does build momentum, for instance the matched donations came in much later than expected, but it did happen. It’s like a rolling stone collecting moss and it builds throughout as it becomes more urgent and important. 

Get the backing of your marketing and social media team - they were really important during the process. 

Find your ally in your leadership team so they can help you by running events alongside, leaving you to concentrate on the comms. Then being strict with what the Development Office is running and having the support to stick to that and push back where needed. 

Having an event that was already existing was one of the best pieces of advice. We already had a community event, Hillfest, so the activity to run this was the responsibility of someone else, leaving me space to focus on the Giving Day. 

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