The event series, which gives speakers just seven minutes to celebrate a fundraising campaign that they wish they’d thought of, has travelled the world, with editions in the UK, Australia, Canada, the USA, France and New Zealand. This Summer, IWITOT 2021: UK & Europe was delivered online, with many case studies from the event now available at SOFII.

With an audience vote from the 400+ viewers, the winning presentation was delivered by Rebecca Wilson, corporate development lead at Mencap in the UK. Her passionate talk centred on a powerful and important social media campaign by The Salvation Army, which took an online debate about the colour of a dress and used it to highlight the horrors of domestic violence.

The runner-up was Fatima Talidi-Marrero of Parkinson’s UK, who shared a video from the Born Free Foundation and Aardman Animations, which lent the voices of humans stuck in lockdown to animated animals. The resulting film shines a bight light on how awful it must be for animals to live constantly in captivity.

More inspiration came from Simona Biancu of ENGAGEDin (Italy), who celebrated the agility of a newly-founded disability charity called La Casa Delle Luci. When everything, from accessing services to fundraising, was thrown into disarray during lockdown, this organisation pivoted so they could keep on helping young people and adults with disabilities.

Fundraising consultant, Lianne Howard-Dace closed IWITOT UK & Europe 2021 by celebrating Marcus Rashford’s superb campaign to end food poverty in the UK and how Rashford used his voice and platform to achieve huge success in both campaigning and fundraising. All the presentations will be shared online at SOFII.org over the coming months and a full recording of the event is available here.

Joe Burnett, SOFII’s contributing editor, says:

“We are thrilled to have been able to keep inspiring fundraisers in these most difficult of times, and are hugely thankful to all our speakers who have stepped up to share their passion, tips, ideas and inspiration at IWITOT.”

SOFII has more IWITOTs planned and is currently exploring showcasing fundraising success in new markets and new language. Find out more at SOFII online or by contacting Joe Burnett.