JustGiving page for Manchester Dogs’ Home receives four donations a second

15 Sep 2014 News

JustGiving has said that donations going to an appeal for the Manchester Dogs’ Home following an arson attack has doubled its previous record for the highest number of donations per hour.

Credit: Manchester Fire Department Twitter

JustGiving has said that donations going to an appeal for the Manchester Dogs’ Home following an arson attack has doubled its previous record for the highest number of donations per hour.

Between 8am and 9pm on Friday, JustGiving processed 8,600 donations to the animal charity, over twice the volume of its previous hourly record. More than 160,000 people from over 40 countries have now donated over £1.4m to the charity.

The online giving platform said that at its peak, the page was handling four donations every second.

The previous record for the highest number of donations per hour on a JustGiving page was that set up by Stephen Sutton before his death from bowel cancer in May of this year. The site collected £4m for Teenage Cancer Trust in the days following Stephen's death.

Anne-Marie Huby, co-founder and managing director of JustGiving, said: “The outpouring of generosity to Manchester Dogs’ Home has been absolutely amazing. We’re used to seeing people rally around the causes they care about but we were just blown away by this one - absolutely blown away by the support and how people responded and the emotion it created.
 
"We were delighted to play our part allowing people to reach into their pockets to do something really good out of a tragedy. This illustrates the power of our platform and how incredibly powerful the internet and social media can be during a time like this.”

JustGiving has also donated £5,000 toward the appeal, however it has resisted calls to waive its fee of up to 5 per cent taken from the gift aid it reclaims, stating that the money it earns is reinvested into the company to continually better its services and allow it to handle traffic surges.

The page was set up by Manchester Evening News on Thursday evening following a fire at the Manchester Dogs’ Home site which left at least 43 dogs dead.


On Saturday the charity had to ask its supporters to stay away after the number of people going to its sister site in Cheshire caused tailbacks on the M6.

In an updated statement, Manchester and Cheshire Dogs’ Home said: “The staff and trustees of Manchester Dogs’ Home would like to express their enormous gratitude for the huge support received from the public following the devastating fire on site Thursday night.

“Other charities stepped in immediately to help, for which the Dogs’ Home is also very grateful.

“While the charity now needs to assess the situation and determine next steps, Manchester Dogs’ Home would like to commend its staff, many of whom witnessed atrocious sights on Thursday evening.”

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