Stephen Fry tweet boosts Adopt-A-Word fundraising campaign

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 12 Aug 2009

A Twitter message by Stephen Fry (pictured) has sparked thousands in donations to an otherwise dormant fundraising campaign.

More than £7,000 has been donated to the children's communication charity I Can via its Adopt A Word campaign since the actor/writer tweeted about his own adoption of the word ‘Wordy’ last Thursday morning.

Clare Horwood, head of individual giving at I Can, said the charity was surprised by the response. “It went from basically dead, because we weren’t doing any marketing activity, to all of a sudden just exploding,” she said.

She said that while traffic had died down after an initial boost last Thursday, it remains at around 1,000 per cent higher than what it was before the Fry tweet.

Fry had adopted the word a few weeks before tweeting about the action. His message on Thursday morning read: “We tweeple find communication easy www.adoptaword.com - a brilliant way to help those who find words hard. I adopted 'wordy' btw @adoptaword”.

The £7,000 value does not include any merchandise, which the charity also sells on the Adopt A Word site.

“It’s amazing. I wish all fundraising was this easy,” Horwood said.

“We were in a situation with Adopt A Word where it wasn’t doing any activity because the plan was to focus it all on Christmas as an alternative gift idea.

"This changes things and we’re looking now at an acquisition plan for those who’ve bought a word."

Horwood said that I CAN was aiming to be the first UK charity to make Twitter work for fundraising, in addition to campaigning.

Adopt A Word was launched in October 2008.

Who's Who: Celina Ribeiro

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