#Heart helpers as a viral fundraising campaign by University Medicine Aachen Foundation

Modern and gentler pediatric medicine in the Aachen University Medical Center. Viral donation campaign #Herzenshelfer to finance medical projects. "Do good, talk about it and show it to the world": After donating via an online donation form, donors can share this via their own social media channels. Donation barometer shows the success of the donation campaign. TYPO3 as content management with individual extensions.

Children should be happy and carefree. But not all children and young people are lucky enough to have a carefree childhood. Children with serious illnesses have to lie in hospital, sometimes for several months. And these kids want them University Medicine Aachen Foundation support. The challenge here is that in some cases vital operations or care offers are not covered by the health insurance companies. "The health insurance companies often only pay for the primary care," says Dr. Mathias Brandstädter, press spokesman for the RWTH Aachen University Hospital. “We offer alternative, often gentler and more helpful methods of healing for the children. And the health insurance companies often don't pay for that. ”In order to enable the Aachen University Medical Center to provide the best possible, modern care, a joint project with the Aachen digital agency giftGRÜN the digital donation campaign #Heart helpers brought to life.

“Do good and talk about it” is the foundation for modern inbound marketing. In an extended variant, this foundation is the core of the viral Donation campaign #Herzenshelfer: "Do good, talk about it and show it to the world". The new website forms the basis of the digital donation campaign herzenshelfer.org, the giftGRÜN in cooperation with the die University Medicine Aachen Foundation from conception to technical implementation. The helpers of the heart can find out on this website for which projects the donations are needed. These include, for example, children with cardiac arrhythmias, families with cancer or children with rare respiratory diseases.

Online donation form with a personal message

Donating is very easy. In one Online donation form the donor gives the relevant information such as the donation amount, the donation rhythm, the personal donor data and the payment method. The actual donation is now complete.

The new heart helper now has the option to publish the donation on a “thank you” page. The donor can upload a picture of himself for publication. A text about the donation can also be published. The University Medicine Aachen Foundation provides text ideas for selection or the donor can leave their own individual message. The donor sees the result of his entry directly in a preview. Before publication on herzenshelfer.org, the foundation must approve the image and text.

After approval, the heart helper can transfer the donation to the own social media channels or copy the link to the donation and distribute it as you wish. It's so easy to become a #heart helper in two minutes and at the same time inform friends, acquaintances and colleagues about the donation and perhaps encourage them to make a donation.

Donation barometer shows the success of the donation campaign

The financing requirement for the realization of the donation projects is 50.000 euros. A donation barometer shows how many donations have already been received. The donation barometer is also part of the online fundraising tools GRÜN spendino and was integrated into the website of the University Medicine Aachen Foundation's CD.

The donation campaign #Herzenshelfer is a complete success. Just three months after the start, around 70% of the funds required to finance the projects have already been donated. To publicize the project, #Herzenshelfer became very prominent in Health magazine apropos presented. The magazine is distributed to around 60.000 households in Aachen. Targeted social media campaigns were also run on Facebook and Instagram to draw attention to the donation project.

TYPO3 with individual extensions

Technically, the website is based on the content management system TYPO3. The Online donation form from GRÜN spendino integrated into the website. The special thing about it: The standard donation workflow has been modified so that the donor can upload a picture on the “thank you page” after the donation and leave a message about the donation. The employees of the University Medicine Aachen Foundation also use the TYPO3 extension to manage the releases of the #Herzenshelfer. A further customization is the presentation of the donation barometer, which can be accessed via an API GRÜN spendino was integrated and optically adapted to the CD of the website.