Case Study

Comic Relief

About Comic ReliefComic Relief is a major charity based in the UK which strives to create a just world free from poverty.

The organization works 365 days a year to help that vision become a reality. The charity spends the

millions of pounds raised each year in the best way possible to tackle the root causes of poverty and

social injustice.

Location UK Challenge To work effectively with grantees for

both its UK and international grant

programmes and securely store

documents in one central place.

Sector Third sector

Industry Charity

Launched from a refugee camp in Sudan on Christmas Day in 1985, Comic Relief has been striving

to create a just world free from poverty for more than 25 years. Through its two big fundraising

campaigns – Red Nose Day and Sport Relief - millions of pounds are raised each year. Every penny

supports people and communities in real need, both across the UK and in the world’s poorest

countries. Since the charity’s launch, Comic Relief cash has been at work in more than 76 countries.

For both its UK and international grant programs, Comic Relief needs to work collaboratively with

grantees. It required a secure space in the cloud that could be accessed from anywhere in the world

and was intuitive to use. Due to its easy-to-use interface and the ability to work with people across

the firewall securely, Comic Relief’s grants department selected Huddle and rolled it out to more than

130 people. Huddle provided a secure central environment for teams to efficiently share strategy

documents, case studies and budgets.

“As we work with different project partners all over the world, each project team needed a central

space to bring together documents and ideas under one roof,” said Sarah Gabriel, Technical Project

Manager, Comic Relief. “Using the organizations’ shared servers wasn’t a suitable option so we looked

to the cloud to provide us an effective solution. We chose Huddle as it hit all of our requirements. It

provided a space to review and provide feedback on work without all these comments being lost in

reams of emails. Versions of documents are now tracked so we have a clear history of how a paper

was developed.”

“Everyone is accustomed to using tools such as Facebook in their personal lives and, rather than

being too daunting, Huddle’s interface proved intuitive to use and very accessible. No hand-holding

was required to get the team up and running,” Sarah continues. “We love the traffic light system for

document approval as it’s now far easier to see who has signed off uploaded files. Huddle has made

the whole process far more efficient.”

Peter Macfadyen, Comic Relief’s Climate Change Manager, added: “I found Huddle extremely versatile

for our work in peer reviewing a number of applications for funding.”

Following its successful deployment within the grants department, Comic Relief is now looking at rolling

Huddle out more widely. With a number of staff working remotely and traveling to and from various

locations, the organization is also examining Huddle’s iPad, iPhone and BlackBerry applications.

“We chose Huddle as it hit all of our

requirements. It provided a space to

review and provide feedback on work

without all these comments being lost in

reams of emails. Versions of documents

are now tracked so we have a clear history

of how a paper was developed.”

- Sarah Gabriel, Technical Project Manager

Comic Relief supports its grant programs and connects global teams with Huddle.