Mental Health UK’s recipe for an 83% event income boost

GLOW was a popular event and growing rapidly—but behind the scenes, the supporter experience felt scattered and hard to manage. In 2024, Mental Health UK changed that—launching a bold new event site built entirely around supporter needs.

In their first year on Funraisin, they almost doubled their total campaign income, shooting from £96k to £176k in just one year.

They also saw 24% higher activation rates, aggregated data which fed in to campaign decision making, and a smoother fundraising journey for their supporters.

We spoke to Jemima, Head of Events and Community Fundraising at Mental Health UK, about what changed and why it worked.

About the event

MHUK’s GLOW night walk has been a popular event for years, where supporters participate in a night walk around the city covered in as many glow sticks as possible in the name of being a ‘light in the darkness’ in the middle of the city.

Every pound raised going toward vital programs supporting those suffering from poor mental health.

The challenge: fragmented tools, disjointed journeys.

Before 2024, Mental Health UK used separate systems to manage registrations, ticketing, and fundraising. However, the event was growing and needed the affiliated data to be all in one place:

• Registration conversions were lower than expected
• Supporter activation felt slow and inconsistent
• Campaign insights were scattered across platforms

With limited flexibility and data trapped in silos, the team needed a platform that could collect all the data, and activate their supporters more reliably.

Being able to give supporters a more visually exciting way to promote their fundraising to their networks has supported the improvement in activation. Also, the ability to easily edit things like our registration forms and donation handles means we’re in control of influencing improvements.”

Jemima
Head of Events and Community Fundraising at Mental Health UK

The solution: one dedicated event microsite that made the fundraising process seamless from end to end.

A microsite is a small, separate website created by a company to promote a specific product, service, event, or campaign, existing independently from its main website with its own URL or subdomain.

To create a more connected experience, Mental Health UK built a dedicated GLOW microsite using Funraisin to create an all-in-one fundraising platform.

Key features included:

• Unified tech stack that keeps registration, fundraising, communications, and data all connected in one place.
• Clear, separate landing pages for each different GLOW event location with their own dedicated registration form
• Simple, smart registration flows that encouraged self-donation for earlier fundraiser activation
• Automated communications were triggered when participants reached key fundraising milestones
• Live dashboards to monitor campaign performance, and make smart, data-driven optimizations

The results: more visibility, stronger performance.

• 83% increase in event income from £96k to £176k in their first year on Funraisin
• 52% increase in average amount raised per fundraiser, from £110 to £168
• 24% increase in fundraiser activation, from 48% to 72%
• 25% boost in registration conversion and completion
• 25% boostin registration conversion and completion

What you can apply to your next campaign.

• Build a dedicated microsite for your event, separate to your main organization website: keep ticketing, registrations, nudges, countdowns, merch sales, event info, and fundraising for your event all in one place.
• Centralize your supporter data: feed everything into one system so you can personalise experiences, anticipate needs, and adapt quickly.
• Automate personalization: use triggers (like registration complete or first donation) to send timely nudges that make supporters feel seen.
• Create a reusable foundation: build event assets and data flows you can roll over year after year, giving your team more time to focus on supporters instead of rebuilding from scratch.