Brewery Sleepout Case Study

How a unique event doubled fundraising targets and bought awareness to a very important cause…

Community goals

If you’re regular readers of our blog, you’ll know that we love to help our clients put on events and boy, last year we did a lot! You can read about those here.

However, one event that really pushed our skills and expertise was The Brewery Sleepout. The first of its kind in Essex and a great experience for us.

Here’s how it went down…

As a centre based very much on community values, Tom Stobbart Manager at The Brewery wanted to add something alongside the awesome Christmas, Easter and, well you get the picture, events. Mindful of the homeless issue in and around the borough and as a result of ties with local homeless shelter charity Hope4Havering, we worked with Tom and the team to brainstorm an event that would really make a difference.

The result? A sleepout in the centre’s carpark with centre management and retailers.

How we did it:

  • Arranged retailer meetings where, with help from Hope4Havering, explained why this was such an important event.
  • Set up Just Giving Page(s) to encourage donations
  • Created a succinct social media and web campaign including: Interviews with Kim Merry founder of Hope4Havering (link) and a press release (link)
  • Raised press awareness with press releases, securing coverage in the Romford Record as well as landing Tom an interview on Time FM.
  • Continuously engaged with Hope4Havering to ensure our messaging was spot on as well as spending time at The Brewery fundraising.

The results:

4 freezing cold OnBrand members – Yep we did it too!

Press coverage that added up to £450 raised a huge amount of awareness around homelessness and Hope4Havering.

And best of all… The event raised over £10,000! That’s double the £5000 we had planned!

Tom Stobbart, Centre Manager at The Brewery said: “Homelessness affects a huge amount of people in every single area and Romford is no different. As a community centre we wanted to ensure we made some noise around this topic and raise money. We turned to OnBrand who have put on most of our events, and together we coined the Brewery Sleepout.”

“I’m so proud of the money we raised and take my hat off to the OnBrand team who organised the whole thing from start to finish, as well as taking time away from their families to join in the event.”

Here’s to next year, creating a legacy and… new thermals!!

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