CorpComms Magazine

The NSPCC raised £100,000 in just 48 hours after a Facebook campaign, in which it played no part and did not instigate, called on supporters to help the charity stop child abuse.

The 'Change your profile picture to a cartoon' campaign asked supporters to do so by 6 December. 'Until Monday [6 December] there should be no human faces on Facebook but an invasion of memories,' its Facebook page said. 'This is for eliminating violence against children.'

The campaign recruited more than 22,000 fans who changed their profile pictures to those of their favourite cartoon characters.

The campaign also had a knock on effect for the NSPCC, attracting more than 50,000 new supporters to the charity's Facebook page, which previously had around 118,000 fans, and 200,000 hits, up 500 per cent, to its websites. Thousands more supporters set up JustGiving pages to raise money for NSPCC.

Paul Amadi, director of fundraising at the NSPCC, said: 'Social networking campaigns can have amazing reach and while the NSPCC was not behind this particular activity, we have been able to attract many new supporters which will help us in our work.'

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