From church pews to online giving: CAFOD UK embraced fundraising transformation

About CAFOD UK

CAFOD UK (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development) has been the official aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales since the 1960s. Their primary mission is fighting poverty and injustice within communities across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The organization responds to emergencies, supports long-term development projects, and advocates for policy changes that address the root causes of poverty. Their work, rooted in Catholic social teaching, focuses on sustainable solutions that empower local communities.

The challenge: inflexible systems leading to missed opportunities

Therese Wynn-Davies, Digital Fundraising Manager at CAFOD UK, had long suspected that the organization’s outdated payment systems were slowing their momentum. But when COVID-19 hit, the problem became more apparent than ever.

“My financial institutions were suddenly giving me payment breaks and flexibility, which was unheard of in the financial sector," explains Therese. "I was very passionate that we should be offering that to our supporters.”

But CAFOD UK didn’t have the technical digital offering to enable this kind of outreach to their supporters. Like a lot of legacy charities, CAFOD UK was struggling with multiple technical challenges that hampered their fundraising effectiveness:

• A recently implemented CRM system that teams were still navigating how to use
• Limited visibility into donor data and behavior patterns
• Declining analytics capabilities due to cookie restrictions
• Labor-intensive manual processes for each new campaign

All the while, the COVID pandemic was also having a catastrophic impact on many of the countries that CAFOD works in. It was exactly the type of situation that they would normally address. But the need for emergency appeals–which could spring up with little notice–created particular pressure on the team.

"I would have to do a lot of custom data work on every single campaign," Therese recalls. "I was constantly context switching between each campaign, and it was just so time consuming. I was also teaching myself as I would go, in a panic, sweating all the time."

The solution: seizing a chance for transformation

When CAFOD UK began updating their website with a new CMS, Therese recognized a rare opportunity to implement Fundraise Up. Despite some internal resistance to moving away from how they’d always approached things, her advocating for the platform was successful.

"It went really, really fast,” she says. It had to. “There was the world's smallest window that I had internally. I did all my benchmarking checks and found that the Fundraise Up offering was exactly what we needed."

Graeme Wallace, Digital Fundraising Support Officer at CAFOD UK, emphasizes how the platform aligned with modern donor expectations for a web shop: "It's an experience that people would expect and have in their normal everyday lives, and they would expect to see it in their charity donating life as well."

Immediate impact: modernizing the donation experience

The implementation of Fundraise Up delivered immediate benefits through seamless digital wallet integration and automated processes that liberated the team from manual tasks.

"The biggest initial thing would be the digital wallets," notes Graeme. "The fact that we didn't have to go to loads of different suppliers to say, ‘We have to have a separate account with PayPal, another one with Apple Pay, another one with Google Pay.’ It was all together in the one platform."

This integration drove remarkable results: 30% of all donations now come through digital wallets. For regular gifts, the combination of digital wallets and continuous card payments (which many UK charities don't offer) accounts for nearly 60% of regular giving.

Meanwhile, automating thank-you messages and other donor communications freed Therese to focus on innovation rather than routine tasks.

"When I suddenly didn't have to do that anymore, I could go off and start a whole new contactless fundraising strategy within the Catholic Church, which has never happened before,” she says. “Tens of thousands of pounds were raised that Harvest campaign alone because I was able to move my attention that way."

Breaking down organizational silos

One of the most transformative aspects of implementing Fundraise Up was how it helped dismantle internal silos that had previously limited fundraising effectiveness.

"Something technology-wise from Fundraise Up that was massive was the floating button. We added that immediately and were blown away by the success rate within seconds of it going online."

This simple feature led to unexpected donations from audiences that weren't traditionally targeted for fundraising, providing tangible proof that campaigners were willing to donate when presented with the right opportunity.

"Suddenly we're going, 'Oh wow, people are really responding to the right ask in the right place, and this button is making that happen. It's almost like people 'need' to be asked while they're in the moment and this technology is serving this for our supporters, the results were, and  continue to be, incredible.”

Digitizing tradition: the online envelope

A traditional fundraising method for Catholic parishes has been central to CAFOD UK since the 1960s, when churchgoers passed envelopes in churches for donations. A year ago, they launched a digital version of this tradition using Fundraise Up, modernizing a legacy approach.

"People are not restricted by how much money they've remembered to bring to church that day," explains Graeme. "They are now able to give the amount that they feel comfortable with without the physical limitation of an envelope, but with the same feeling of using the parish envelope."

The platform has also provided valuable donor insights that weren't possible before, enabling them to better understand giving patterns and preferences.

"My favorite donor has given the most in a single donation, and almost to the minute, a month later, set up a regular gift that is still going,” says Graeme. “It was literally the same day, one month later, exactly the same time, give or take a minute."

Match funding: dramatic results with social proof

Using Fundraise Up's out-of-the-box campaign features, CAFOD UK implemented match funding for the first time, with extraordinary results that exceeded all expectations.

"We put £40,000 from a major donor on our match funding campaign on Fundraise Up, and then we sent it out on email. It matched within five hours on a Friday afternoon," Therese shares. "The year before, we were gobsmacked that we hit £22,000. With match funding, it hit £40K, then £50K, and it kept going to £80K. Our supporters just kept giving to it, even though the campaign explicitly said 'your donations are no longer matched.'"

The following year, they repeated the success with a £100,000 match funding campaign, demonstrating the power of social proof and clear calls to action.

A collaborative partnership for future growth

The CAFOD UK team is enthusiastic about their ongoing relationship with Fundraise Up, citing the collaborative approach as a key factor in their success and future plans.

"I'm very excited by it because there's room for growth," says Therese. "It was so refreshing to have somebody listen and understand some of the technical things that I'm trying to do. Our communication setup is brilliant, and that's what excites me about what’s next."

Graeme adds, "The way that we've described it internally is, even down to the payment model–because it's a percentage–the more money we make, the more you, as Fundraise Up, innovate and help us to make more money, the better it is for you."

With plans to expand their use of the platform for Giving Tuesday and other campaigns, CAFOD UK continues to leverage Fundraise Up to break down silos both internally and within the broader religious charity sector.

Sometimes we go to seminars or webinars, and we are so far ahead of everyone else because of Fundraise Up that we don't learn things from other people anymore. They’re asking us.