THE ASK
GoFundMe, founded back in 2010 by Brad Damphousse and Andy Ballester in San Diego, has revolutionised the way people raise and give money but when they entered the Irish market, they were unknown. FleishmanHillard started working with GoFundMe in 2018 to build brand recognition, encourage people in Ireland to start their own GoFundMe campaigns and make GoFundMe a household name in Ireland.
THE RESPONSE & RESULTS
Our strategy was simple – create an always-on PR campaign that would focus on individual GoFundMe campaigns to raise both brand awareness, and awareness and funds for individual campaigns.
Working with the team in GoFundMe we identified the campaigns that would drive media interest at a national and regional level. For each individual campaign we devised a mini PR strategy to ensure the right approach was taken for each campaign; for some the PR focused on local media across print, online and broadcast and for other campaigns a national approach worked best with interviews on national TV and radio and support from some of Ireland’s most popular social influencers.
Towards the end of 2019 a campaign by the Rotunda Hospital to raise money for a new heart ultrasound machine for premature babies caught the media and public’s interest. We secured widespread national media coverage for the campaign including Virgin media news, Irish Times, & Newstalk interviews with the campaign organiser in the Rotunda. Within a week the campaign had raised €13,000 out of a target of €76,500 for the vital piece of equipment and ultimately the campaign raised €100,000 exceeding its target.
Our media relations strategy brings to life the people behind the campaigns allowing the public to see exactly where their donations are going and building trust in GoFundMe.
GoFundMe has gone from strength to strength since entering the Irish market and coverage for campaigns and the platform itself continues to grow. The results speak for themselves – as Ireland now has the highest number of donations per capita globally and almost 1 in 10 people in Ireland have used the site.
