Their Story Could be Your Story

Every winter, the Guardian runs a charity appeal. For 2024/25, the campaign aimed to raise funds on behalf of three charities – Médecins Sans Frontières, WarChild and Parallel Histories – all working to help civilians caught up in warfare across the globe.

With images of suffering now commonplace and sadly less able to shock, our strategy was to bring the realities of Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan closer to home. Our proposition was simple – Their story could be your story.

Creatively, we chose everyday objects that all of us have and demonstrated the unexpected, heartbreaking new uses these items develop when people have lost virtually all they own. The concept endline captured the shift in one line – War changes everything.

In just five weeks, the campaign raised £1.75 million for the charities – 75% more than our original £1m target and a 22% increase on the previous year – alongside a 24.7% uplift in the number of donors compared to last winter.