American fundraising platform GoFundMe has appointed a director of communications in the UK as part of its “European expansion” plans for the coming year.
The American-based digital fundraising platform announced the appointment of John Coventry to “spearhead” its communications in the United Kingdom today, and said his appointment was likely to be the first of several “expected to join across Europe this year”, as part of the organisation's planned expansion.
Coventry is the organisation’s first employee outside of the United States of America, and will join the organisation from digital campaigning platform Change.org, where he is currently the managing director of global communications.
The organisation said that Kelsea Little, media director at GoFundMe, currently based in California, will relocate to the UK in order to help Coventry “boost the operation in its early stages”.
A spokeswoman for GoFundMe said that Coventry will be the organisation’s head of UK communications and is set to take up his new role “as of January 2017”. He will report directly to Dan Pfeiffer, vice president of policy and communications at GoFundMe.
GoFundMe already has the best part of 75,000 campaign organisers in the United Kingdom and has raised over £57m. In 2016, over 38,000 UK-based pages raised over £37m, including the £1.9m raised for causes supported by Jo Cox, the murdered Labour MP.
The spokeswoman confirmed however that donations made to GoFundMe pages in the UK are not eligible for Gift Aid, and said that the organisation currently has no plans to change this.
She said that the organisation was also currently hiring in both Spain and France.
Commenting on his new appointment, Coventry said: “The power of the internet to give everyone the tools to stand up for the issues they care about is one of the defining stories of our times. GoFundMe is changing the way people raise and give money, and the team and product are incredibly impressive. It’s great to be joining at such an exciting stage of growth and I can’t wait to get started.”
GoFundMe launched in the US in 2010 and has raised over $3bn in that time, making it the world’s largest social fundraising platform.
Related Articles
