As Sarah Bissell, GOSH Charity’s Deputy Director of Relationship Fundraising, explains, gaming and streaming are opening up exciting new ways to engage supporters and raise vital funds.
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When we set out to host our first-ever livestreamed fundraising event at Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity (GOSH Charity), we knew we were stepping into new territory.

Gaming and streaming is a growing area of focus for the charity and one that presents exciting opportunities to reach new audiences. With GOSH Charity in the midst of its biggest-ever fundraising appeal - Build it. Beat it - to help build a new Children’s Cancer Centre at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), identifying new income streams is vital to help us meet our ambitious £300m target.

The Curious Case of the Copper Key, an online whodunnit-style event fronted by YouTube star TommyInnit last month, marked our first-ever livestreamed fundraiser. While we have been exploring opportunities within the gaming space for a while, this event represented a significant step forward that has given us invaluable insight into how we reach new online audiences.

Why gaming and streaming?

As of 2024, there were an estimated 37.7 million video game users in the UK, and that number will continue to grow. For GOSH Charity, gaming partnerships and streamed fundraising offer an invaluable opportunity to engage new audiences through activities they enjoy. We see reaching supporters in their digital communities as a key area for the future of fundraising - and we know many other charities are exploring this too.

To build our presence in this fundraising space, we developed a business case to establish a dedicated gaming and streaming team - we hired a senior manager with experience in the gaming sector and paired them with an existing colleague with brilliant first-hand knowledge of content creation. We also established a Gaming Board, made up of experts from gaming companies, agencies and talent management, who have shared crucial insights into the industry and helped us expand our network in this area.

We had already seen success within gaming and streaming, including working with the brilliant DanTDM to fund £300,000 worth of gaming equipment at GOSH, but we were looking for further ways to build authenticity, credibility and income with online audiences. Through conversations with Tiltify - the platform we use for streamed fundraising - we began to explore how we could grow our reputation in this area. From those discussions, the concept for our first-ever livestream fundraiser, The Curious Case of the Copper Key, started to take shape.

Partnering with TommyInnit

Our collaboration with TommyInnit came via one of our Gaming Board members, who manages the YouTube star. As we developed the idea, she recognised it would be a meaningful fit for TommyInnit, also known as Tom Simons. In 2022, Tom lost his close friend and fellow content creator Technoblade to cancer. His loss inspired Tom to use his online platforms to raise vital funds and awareness to help in the fight against cancer.

Once Tom was confirmed as host, we needed to develop an authentic idea that matched his style of content and what his audience enjoys. Working with Tiltify, we put together an

interactive whodunnit-style mystery featuring a cast of much-loved creators – including YouTubers MatPat and Keith Habersberger and TikTok stars Abbie Budden, Imogen Andrews and Henry Calvert – who each stepped into the role of a suspect in the story.

Viewers were invited to work together in real time to solve the mystery, unlocking clues through donations. The event even included surprise moments from well-known supporters, including a video message from Gordon Ramsay. The result was a fantastic, upbeat event that offered audiences a fun storyline to follow, while uniting everyone behind our Build it. Beat it. appeal.

What we learned

We are still learning so much, but one important lesson is that creators and influencers understand their audiences intimately - they know what they want to hear and how. Their followers are already a tightly knit community who feel connected to one another, which is fundamentally different to traditional fundraising events, where you might have hundreds of individuals or small groups taking part independently. With creator audiences, you are stepping into a ready-made community that is hugely engaged and passionate about what their favourite creator says – and a successful activation needs to keep that in mind throughout.

New formats come with risk. We were mindful that it was difficult to predict who would watch and how much would be donated. To help mitigate this, we worked hard to secure sponsorship and major gifts ahead of the event. Thanks to our partnership with Tiltify, we attracted brilliant sponsors including Staple Games, Ripple, AdoptMe, PaySafe, LEK and Miniclip. We were also incredibly fortunate to secure two matched donors at £150,000 as well as a generous donation from MatPat and his wife Stephanie. The support from our amazing sponsors and donors on top of the donations from those taking part helped mitigate the risks.

For other charities exploring gaming and streaming opportunities, my biggest advice is: start small, test and learn. There is less data to rely on when it comes to gaming and streaming than in other fundraising areas, and you will need to lean into some discomfort. Having evidence of what you have done builds credibility - so the sooner you begin, the sooner you can learn.

The outcome and looking ahead

Overall, our livestream fundraiser gained more than 183,000 views and raised nearly £470,000. This will go towards building a new Children’s Cancer Centre at GOSH - a world-leading facility bringing together pioneering research, cutting-edge treatments and child-centred care. Too many childhoods are lost to cancer and this centre can help change that.

Going forwards, gaming and streaming will continue to be a major focus for GOSH Charity. It offers a meaningful way to connect with new audiences and we are continuing to build relationships with gamers, streamers and content creators who want to support seriously ill children. The Curious Case of the Copper Key marked an important step in our gaming and streaming work, and with other exciting things in the pipeline, we look forward to continuing to grow in this area.

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