What's behind the success of ActionAid's regular giving programme?

ActionAid works with women and girls living in poverty, ending violence and fighting poverty to create a just and fair world. Its regular giving programme is a core source of the recurring income that sustains that work.

I took on responsibility for ActionAid's acquisition programme at the end of 2021, right as we were coming out of the pandemic and into a run of major humanitarian emergencies, including the response to the war in Ukraine, then the Syria-Turkey earthquake in 2023.

Those moments drove generosity from donors, but underneath that, our regular giving programme, especially on Google, wasn't attracting the volume of supporters we knew it could.

At the time we were working with a large, well-known global agency. They had impressive reach and insight across sectors and regions, but I didn't feel they understood the UK charity sector specifically, and certainly not the added complexity of being a UK-based international development organisation. As our contract came up for renewal, I wanted to go out and test the market, not just for technical expertise, but for a partner who understood the environment we operate in and who aligned with our values as an organisation.

We've been on our own journey as ActionAid, working from feminist principles towards decolonising our storytelling and embedding anti-racism into our work. Torchbox was the partner that demonstrated, clearly, the value they could bring against all of that.

One of the first changes we made together was consolidating our Google Ads accounts, we went from five accounts down to one. There was some apprehension, because we'd only restructured the account a few years earlier and it felt like it might mean undoing recent work. But the way Google Ads works, and how much more the platform has moved towards automation and machine learning, meant standing still wasn't an option. We talked it through at length, during the tender, and again during onboarding, including what we'd do if it didn't work. However, it worked out very well.

People ask what it's like working with an agency day to day, and I honestly don't think of Torchbox as an agency in the traditional sense, I see them as an extension of ActionAid.

Torchbox owns the management of our search activity, but over time that's grown to include support on Meta, and more recently on legacy giving. We communicate on Codebase (a ticketing platform) for day-to-day communication, response is prompt, and we've got a good rhythm of bi-weekly catch-ups and quarterly reviews. To create a more integrated approach, we have brought together Torchbox and MI Media, our offline media agency for TV and out-of-home, to amplify activity across channels and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our marketing.

Our new partnership has changed and improved my understanding of our search accounts. There were a lot of details I didn't have visibility of, as activities were managed through platforms such as SA360 and DV360. Now we all use the native Google and Microsoft Ads platforms, I can see what's happening, ask questions when something doesn't look right, and be part of the conversation rather than waiting for a report. Given the size of our account, that's been far more productive for both sides.

We've also done work on our landing pages, with a mobile-first mindset as most of our traffic comes from mobile devices. Our site is generally built to adapt across devices, but products and pages evolve over time: a compliance update here, a small maintenance change there, and mobile-friendly principles quietly slip because changes so often happen on a desktop screen first. Revisiting that with mobile-first thinking in mind, rather than just mobile-friendly as an afterthought, has made a real difference.

In 2025, we reintroduced lottery to our regular giving portfolio. As with any organisation, we don't want to rely on just one or two income sources, and the lottery, through our partner, Sterling Lotteries, lets us reach a different audience, people who might not otherwise engage with us. It complements our core regular giving offer: it still supports our work, but the appeal of a prize also brings people to the site and generates insight we wouldn't get otherwise.

This year, in several months, our cost per acquisition for regular giving has come in under £100, with around £100k in recurring revenue generated so far this year. The last time we saw a comparable response was in 2022, but that was against the backdrop of the pandemic response and the Ukraine appeal, so this year's performance stands on its own.

What it really shows is the value of being willing to adapt. Over the last 12 to 18 months we've tested different strategies together — new platforms, new products, new messaging, closer integration between online and offline. Not everything has worked, but we've kept testing and worked through it collaboratively with the Torchbox team.

ActionAid has now entered a new era, with a fundraising strategy that is shifting from a traditional ‘donate to us’ proposition towards one that seeks solidarity over charity. We are no longer asking people simply to give. We want to attract values-aligned supporters who, alongside their financial support, share our goal of achieving movement-led, systemic change. We're not just asking people to give; we want them to understand our work and stand with women and girls around the world. That will shape our messaging going forward, and our goal is to stay ahead of platform changes so we can keep attracting people who genuinely align with our values, while donations, of course, remain important.

My advice for other charities looking at their own acquisition programme? Don't be afraid to simplify, even when it feels like undoing recent work. Find a partner who takes the time to understand your sector, your organisation and its complexities, and who genuinely aligns with your values. And keep testing. Not everything will work, but persistence, and a genuinely collaborative relationship with your agency, is what makes the difference.