Doddie Aid

The My Name'5 Doddie Foundation wanted to turn an annual exercise challenge into a national fundraising platform for motor neurone disease research. The build had to handle sudden scale, integrate fundraising and Gift Aid, and keep tens of thousands of participants motivated to log activity for weeks. It also had to ship before the campaign window opened.

We built a cross-platform mobile app (iOS and Android) and a responsive web companion, with the fundraising mechanics designed to hold up at peak. Participants could log activity manually or via GPS, see their progress on leaderboards, and contribute to team and district totals.

• Cross-platform mobile (iOS, Android) plus a responsive web app
• Manual and GPS activity logging for runs, walks, and rides
• Leaderboards, leagues, and districts to keep things competitive
• Integrated fundraising with Gift Aid support and merchandise

How we approached it

Charity-campaign apps live or die by their first weekend. Our priority was making sure the platform held up to a sudden traffic spike at launch, then stayed engaging across the full campaign window. That meant making opinionated calls on what was in scope: the leaderboard mattered more than profile customisation, and team and district mechanics mattered more than personal statistics. We load-tested the fundraising integration up front, because the fundraising peak was where the platform could not afford to fail.

Transforming the experience

The first campaign saw 17,000 active users on the platform and raised over £900,000 for MND charities. Participants collectively covered enough distance to circle the world 78 times over. The app turned a fundraising challenge into something season-long, social, and measurable that participants could see themselves in. For the foundation, it gave them a reusable platform that scales with their ambition.