The Nation's Bake Sale: Reviving Bake for Heroes
Background
Bake for Heroes had been part of Help for Heroes' fundraising programme since 2008, growing into one of the charity's flagship mass participation events.
But by 2018, the fundraising landscape had changed. Every charity seemed to have a bake sale. Supporter numbers and income were falling, and the format had lost the cut-through it once had.
With Help for Heroes celebrating its 10th anniversary, there was an opportunity to breathe new life into the campaign and remind people why the charity mattered.
The Brief
The challenge was simple to say and hard to do: make people excited about baking for Help for Heroes again.
The existing event needed a stronger proposition, a fresh creative platform, and a campaign that could reconnect with loyal supporters while bringing entirely new audiences into the charity — working across schools, workplaces, community groups, and corporate partners, without losing the military heritage at its heart.
The Work
Rather than reinvent the event, we reinvented how people thought about it.
We repositioned Bake for Heroes as The Nation's Bake Sale — giving it a bigger role than just another charity bake sale. The new proposition tapped into the warmth people already felt for Help for Heroes and invited everyone, whatever their connection to the Armed Forces, to play their part.
We led the strategy, proposition, and creative direction, developing a campaign that balanced fun with purpose while staying true to the charity's military roots. Alongside the creative, we built a supporter journey to improve stewardship and retention, so participants had a consistent experience regardless of when they signed up.
Working with a trusted network of designers, artworkers, and developers, we delivered a fundraising campaign that felt fresh, engaging, and unmistakably Help for Heroes.
Results
The relaunched campaign more than doubled participation in its first year:
1,100 sign-ups, up from 510 the previous year
50% of participants were completely new to the charity
50% remittance rate
£153 average gift
£84,150 total raised
The numbers tell one story — a stalled mass participation event brought back to life. But the bigger lesson was about proposition, not product: the bake sale itself didn't need to change. How people saw it did.