`Bump It Forward`: How a campaign challenged our fundraising status quo

This paper describes the development and implementation of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine's (LSTM) Bump It Forward campaign, which was launched in January 2021 to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) and protect health workers in African countries until the COVID-19 vaccine reached them. As a specialist and small institution with an embryonic fundraising operation, it was assumed that LSTM would never be successful as a public fundraising charity. However, this campaign challenged these beliefs and LSTM's existing approach to fundraising, resulting in more than five times the original target being raised, and increasing donor numbers seven-fold. This paper considers some of the elements that made the campaign so successful, which shattered the previous misconceptions of fundraising ability and challenged what constitutes best practice, particularly for donor acquisition strategies. The paper concludes with a summary of the lessons learned, which can be applied to fundraising practice in any size of organisation.