At a glance: What this guide covers
What is a DIY Campaign
How DIY solves common DIY and community fundraising pain points
Recommended setup for the best DIY experience
What is a DIY Campaign?
DIY Campaigns are designed for supporters who want to fundraise their way. Instead of taking part in a set challenge or event organised by your charity, they might host a bake sale, mark a birthday or anniversary, shave their head, run a personal challenge, or create an activity entirely of their own.
A DIY Campaign gives them full flexibility to choose their activity, while still keeping all registrations and fundraising pages organised and connected in GivePanel for your team.
Important note:
If you’re running a structured challenge where supporters sign up to one set event - for example “Walk 100km in May” and you want their JustGiving pages to link to a specific JustGiving Event or Campaign, please use the Virtual Event campaign type instead.
DIY Campaigns do not support preset JustGiving Event IDs or direct linking to a JustGiving Campaign, as they’re intentionally built for supporters doing their own individual activities.
How DIY works
With a DIY campaign, supporters can:
Fundraise anytime – DIY campaigns can stay open year round or run for a specific period. You can even embed the form on your website to keep it evergreen.
Share what they’re doing and when – Supporters can tell you what kind of activity they’re organising, such as “Hosting a bake sale in September” or “Sponsored head shave.”
Create a fundraising page instantly – Their fundraising page is automatically created on JustGiving or Facebook the moment they register, keeping their journey seamless and connected.
Why charities love DIY
DIY Campaigns solve one of the biggest challenges charities face - the disconnected, multi step process that often comes with DIY and community fundraising.
Traditionally, supporters would email in or register in one place and create their fundraising page somewhere else. This often leads to lost momentum, incomplete data and time consuming follow up.
With GivePanel, supporters can register and create their fundraising page in one simple flow, meaning:
No manual chasing to ensure they’ve created a page
Less time lost between registration and first donation
A smoother, more motivating experience for the supporter
Because registration, page creation, and data capture all happen together, GivePanel also makes it easy to automate personalised stewardship through email journeys.
You can trigger personal, timely messages for each supporter at key moments, such as:
After they’ve registered and created a fundraiser – Welcome them instantly, share tips, and help them get started with their fundraising.
Fundraising type – Send targeted emails tailored to the specific fundraising activity a supporter has chosen.
Before or after their event date – Whether it’s a bake sale, head shave, or sponsored run, schedule emails a set number of days before or after the date they shared at sign up to keep your communication relevant.
When they hit a fundraising milestone – Send congratulatory or motivational emails based on either the percentage of their fundraising target reached (for example, 50% or 100%) or the total amount raised (for example, raised £200 or less than £200).
By automating these touch points, you can offer a tailored, one to one experience at scale, ensuring every fundraiser feels supported without adding to your team’s workload.
The perfect setup
For the best DIY experience, we recommend combining:
A well structured DIY campaign setup – Create a dedicated DIY campaign in GivePanel as the platform guides you through the setup. Use a clear name, strong visuals, and keep your registration form simple.
Engaging automated emails – Build an email journey that congratulates, motivates, and celebrates supporters throughout their DIY experience at key milestones. Automation ensures every supporter gets thoughtful touch points without extra manual work.
Smart Match for JustGiving – Automatically enrol organic JustGiving fundraisers (created outside of the integration) that match your DIY criteria, ensuring even supporters who start fundraising natively on JustGiving are captured and stewarded.
Together, these create a seamless, supporter led experience that reduces admin, improves data accuracy, and keeps your fundraisers engaged from the moment they sign up.