How Action for Children's Secret Santa campaign raised over £1.5 million in a single year

Action for Children is one of the UK's largest children's charities, working across 342 local services to support vulnerable children, young people and families. They exist to help every child have a safe and happy childhood. From family support and foster care to mental health services and disability support, they've been on the ground in communities for more than 150 years.

While the heart of their mission hasn't changed in that time, how they deliver their work has. Today, the website is the digital front door for the organisation. With over 1.5 million page views annually, it’s where supporters donate, families find local services, and potential foster carers begin their journey. The annual Secret Santa campaign is a standout example of how digital supports both engagement and fundraising.

We've collaborated with Action for Children since 2021, when we rebuilt and migrated their Secret Santa campaign from a standalone microsite onto their main Wagtail CMS platform. That initial work laid the foundations for a long-term partnership built around ongoing improvements year after year.

The UK charity sector is under extraordinary pressure. The number of people donating regularly has declined significantly, with only half of the public saying they gave to charity in the previous 12 months, according to CAF. This is down from 58% in 2019, equivalent to around four million fewer donors. At the same time, charities are navigating the cost-of-living crisis, rising operational costs, and increased employer National Insurance contributions, which NCVO estimates add £1.4 billion in additional costs across the sector.

In this context, removing barriers for the people who do want to give is vital. The donation experience needs to feel intuitive, communicate impact clearly, and perform reliably across devices. All of that influences whether someone completes their gift or drops off.

The fantastic digital team at Action for Children are fully committed to this approach. Our role has been to support that by building and maintaining a platform that performs reliably during high-pressure campaign moments, like Secret Santa.

From the start of our partnership, we've treated the Action for Children website as a living product, not a one-off project.

The campaign is a great example of this in practice. Each year, it needs to support tens of thousands of supporters, reliably and at scale, with over 60% of traffic coming from mobile devices.

Our approach has focused on three key areas:

1. Frictionless donation journeys

Secret Santa is built around a donation journey designed to feel straightforward and intuitive.

Whether someone is buying a virtual gift for a loved one or making a donation, the experience is clear, fast and reassuring.

The quick donate page was the fourth most-viewed page on the entire website last year, with over 66,000 views. That tells us supporters are finding the campaign easily and moving smoothly through the journey.

The ongoing work here is to make sure as many of those visits convert into completed donations.

2. Continuous optimisation through data

SEO and digital data strategies were integrated early in the partnership, helping Action for Children rank highly for competitive search terms and expand reach to new supporters.

This allows the team to respond to real performance signals, building on what’s working and addressing friction points as they emerge.

The campaign has achieved first-place rankings on Google for competitive terms like 'charity secret Santa' and 'charity Christmas presents', helping new supporters discover it organically year after year.

3. Reliability under pressure

Campaigns like Secret Santa bring intense bursts of traffic, particularly when TV advertising and social media moments are live. Any disruption during these peaks can directly impact fundraising.

Our technical approach focuses on keeping the site stable under pressure, so people can donate without interruption. This was put to the test early in our partnership, when Action for Children’s collaboration with John Lewis’ Christmas advert drove significant traffic surges.

It remains a priority each year as Secret Santa drives concentrated peaks in demand, ensuring supporters can give when they’re ready, without delays or disruption.

This is where Wagtail CMS plays an important role. It’s built to handle large-scale, high-traffic websites. It also powers NHS.UK, which served over a billion page views in a single year during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as flagship sites for Oxfam, WWF-US, Samaritans and RNIB.

The 2025 campaign continued to build on previous years, delivering strong results within a concentrated period:

• Over 30,000 virtual gifts purchased
• Over £1,500,000 raised online
• Over 66,000 visits to the quick donate page
• Over 40% increase in revenue compared to the previous year

This level of performance, delivered within a short seasonal window, highlights the impact of a well-optimised digital experience.

What donors say themselves often tells the story best. Action for Children runs an optional post-donation survey, and from nearly 3,000 respondents in December 2025, the vast majority rated the ease of the donation process a perfect 10 out of 10 (no pressure for 2026, right?!).

One donor wrote:

"I am very elderly and find technology difficult. This was easier than most to complete."

Others praised the clear messaging, range of gift options and straightforward process. A supporter who'd worked in the charity sector themselves specifically highlighted the quality of the interface. And one donor captured the spirit of the campaign perfectly:

"Growing up in the 70s, there was nowhere families in poverty could turn to at Christmas. I'm so glad that in the year 2025, your charity is so easy to donate to and make it as magical for kids growing up in poverty as the rest of the kids in the UK."

Personally, I always think that a good donation process is like a referee in football: they're doing their job well when you don't notice them. So when donors go out of their way to leave unprompted positive feedback about a website, it's a really great sign that the digital experience is doing exactly what it should, getting out of the way and letting the user's generosity flow.

It's easy to see campaign performance purely as a technical concern, but for Action for Children, there is a clear connection between the quality of the digital experience and the ability to deliver on their mission.

When we improve digital performance, more money gets raised, and more life-changing work happens. Every donation that completes smoothly, rather than dropping off at checkout; every supporter who finds the campaign through organic search rather than a paid ad; every donor who finds the process easy rather than giving up. This all translates into income that goes towards funding Action for Children's 342 local services, family support programmes, foster care provision and work with disabled children.

In a sector where four million fewer people are donating compared to five years ago, making the most of every visit, every interaction, and every moment of generosity is key.

We're proud of what this partnership has achieved, and we're excited about what comes next. The digital landscape changes quickly, and a "set it and forget" strategy is not going to work anymore. There are always opportunities to reduce friction, strengthen journeys, and keep making the experience easier for supporters.

I really care about the fundraising work we do here at Torchbox because it's a chance to help charities deliver even more of their vital work. Whether funds come in via a bucket collection or a highly optimised donation form, the important thing is that great organisations like Action for Children have the resources they need to deliver on their mission. And I just so happen to believe that digital is one of the best tools available to help great causes connect with more people, raise more funds, and do more life-changing work.