20 Jul 2012: Maggie's Cancer Centres and LEPRA Health In Action have been named as the recipients of data marketing company The REaD Group's 2012 Charity Data Bursary. The two charities will share the £60,000 prize.

Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres was awarded the ‘Larger Charity’ bursary of £50,000 worth of data management consulting and solutions while LEPRA Health in Action will collect  the ‘Smaller Charity’ databursary of £10,000 worth of data management consulting and solutions.

“The level of entries this year was outstanding which made it extremely tough for us judges,” says Mark Roy, CEO of The REaD Group. “British charities lead the world when it comes to effective fundraising however, current economic and environmental pressures mean that charities need to be even more efficient. As a company we are committed to helping marketers working in the voluntary sector to maximise their fundraising revenue and we look forward to doing just this with both our winners.”

A total of 54 entries were received from charities across the UK, Northern Ireland and Scotland and each one was judged on its individual merits for the quality of the response, the likely value to the charity in terms of fundraising, the charity need, the size of the database and current status of its data management activity and the infrastructure within the charity: in other words, whether it has the ability and senior management buy-in and existing resource to successfully implement a project of this nature.

The is the second time The REaD Group has awarded the Bursary. The previous winner was Breast Cancer Care in 2008 and a case study is available to view here.