What is the 1897 Challenge?
A part of our Paws 2 Play gaming for good campaign, it’s a chance for casual gamers, dedicated streamers and everyone in between to get involved and raise money to help the pets at Blue Cross.
We’re asking gamers, streamers, and content creators to join us for the challenge and then play for 1897 minutes (31 hours and 37 minutes) which is a little over an hour a day between 1 and 31 March 2024.
Why 1897? Well, it’s the year we were founded and it’s the perfect way to remember all the pets that have been helped over the years.
I don’t think I can commit to doing the full 1897 minutes. Can I still take part?
Absolutely! While we suggest the 1897 minute challenge, there’s nothing stopping you from doing your own thing for this event, as any fundraising and support would be incredibly appreciated and help us to change the lives of pets in need for the better.
Here are just a few examples of other things you could do as your challenge or fundraiser for this event:
- Host a games night for friends and family, whether it’s board games or getting everyone together to compete on something like Mario Kart! Ask for a small donation from everyone taking part.
- Run a one-off charity stream on Twitch, sometimes a single stream can be even more impactful than lots of smaller ones! Set yourself a fun or chaotic stretch goal for if you raise £1,897 or even have forfeits for every £30 you raise as a nod to the 30 years of our Pet Loss Support Service.
No matter what you do, you’re welcome as part of this event so get creative and put your love for gaming, streaming and pets to good use!
Do I have to play a certain game?
Absolutely not! It’s your challenge so do things your way. You can play your favourite go to games, on your own, or as part of a team. From the latest and greatest games to classics, you can even put your fate in the hands of your friends and family and ask them to vote using a poll on Tiltify when they donate to choose what you play next!
We’ve seen people in previous events having fun in Fall Guys, getting creative with Minecraft, challenging themselves to a nuzlocke run in Pokemon and even playing Dark Souls with their dog. The possibilities are endless.
Of course, you can always do something not related to gaming at all such as streaming arts and crafts, music, or even just a live feed of your pets. Get creative and do things your way to fundraise for the pets.
How do I get sponsored for gaming or streaming to unlock the rewards?
When you sign up with our partners at Tiltify, you’ll create a fundraising campaign that will let you easily collect sponsorship that is then sent directly to Blue Cross to help support our work with pets in need.
To help you get donations, we’ve put together a fundraising guide full of inspiration to get you started.
Our top tips though are to share your fundraising page with friends, family, and followers as much as possible, taking the time to let them know how donations will make a difference and what it would mean to you and the charity. Don’t be afraid to send a short message with a link out in a message or WhatsApp group!
We also recommend taking the time to use some of Tiltify’s extra features like polls and rewards to make your fundraiser interactive. Some of the ideas that we’ve seen work really well are often the simple ones too, eating a sour sweet or food you don’t like when someone donates a certain amount or naming a character after everyone who donates. You can get as creative as you want and share your ideas with teammates in our Discord.
Do I need to get sponsored to take part?
The event is free to take part in and even without fundraising you can help to raise awareness about Blue Cross and the work we do.
Of course, if you can fundraise, every donation no matter how small is greatly appreciated as we couldn’t help vulnerable pets without donations and support from people like you.
If you can’t get sponsored but still want to help, you can always donate to your own fundraising page to make a difference and you might even unlock some of our rewards as a little thank you for your kindness.
Do I need to play all 1897 minutes in one sitting?
Don’t panic! 1897 minutes is a long time – 31 hours and 37 minutes to be exact – so the challenge is intended to be done across the whole month and we advise against doing it all in one go.
How you complete your challenge is up to you though, if you want to break it up into manageable chunks and play an hour a day or dial up the difficulty and try a marathon gaming or streaming session to complete six, 12 or 24 hours in one go, it really is your choice!
Just remember that whatever you choose, make sure to plan and look ahead of yourself taking time for breaks and if you feel unwell at any point you should stop.
Do I need to be a streamer to take part?
Nope, you can still sign up and launch a Tiltify fundraising page, help pets and earn rewards even if you would rather not stream!
While streaming your fundraiser live as it happens can be great, it’s not without challenges. If you’re not comfortable doing it, don’t have the kit, or don’t have an audience, you can still help us in other ways without streaming.
In fact, playing games privately offline, setting up a tournament with friends, or even hosting a board game night can still work just as well. You can make use of polls to decide which games are played or if you have to do any forfeits, just make sure to share your fundraising page as much as possible before, during and after your challenge with lots of photos and updates.
How do the teams work?
Part of the fun of this event is that you can be a part of one of our four teams: Team Cat, Team Dog, Team Horse, or Team Rabbit.
By linking your fundraiser to one of these teams, you’ll be helping them to the top of the team leader board with every donation you receive. Then at the end of the event, the team with the highest amount raised will be crowned our winners.
When registering for the event on Tiltify, select the individual fundraising option and then tick the box to say you’d like to join an existing team. From there you can select from the ones available and carry on with your fundraising as normal.
To join a team during your registration for the event follow this short guide. Or if you missed doing when you signed up, you can follow this guide instead.
I’m under 18 – can I take part?
You can still take part but we do ask that you get parental permission before signing up for the 1897 Challenge so they can support you and help to make sure you look after your health by taking regular breaks during your challenge. If your parents have any questions about the event, they can contact us on [email protected].
How do I log my hours?
There’s no need to submit any proof to us to show you’ve completed the challenge, but we do encourage you to share updates about how many hours you’ve done with your friends and family as this is a great way to ask for extra support and donations.
To make this as easy as possible you can log your progress on your Tiltify fundraising page by following this video tutorial in just a couple of minutes.
When will any rewards be sent out?
So that we can make sure as much of your hard-earned sponsorship goes to supporting the charities goals of helping change pets lives, we will be ordering the rewards after the challenge finishes on 8 April 2024.
This does mean that as your rewards bundle will be made to order, it will take our suppliers five to seven weeks to get everything produces and sent to you. We’ll provide updates on the production to those who have qualified after the event ends but you should receive all rewards by the end of May.
When is the cut off for earning rewards?
To determine which rewards you have qualified for, we run a report after the end of the challenge and take your final fundraising total from your Tiltify campaign to see which bundle you have unlocked. The cut off time when your rewards are decided is at 11.59am (GMT) on 8 April 2024. If you have any offline fundraising or would like to donate yourself to move up a level, please ensure it’s done before this time.
You can read more about exactly what qualifies for the rewards by reading our terms and conditions.
How do I register for 1897 Challenge?
First of all, visit Tiltify and then follow the steps in this video tutorial to register and take advantage of all the features available!
What does publishing my fundraising page mean and how do I do it?
Publishing your Tiltify fundraising page is another way of saying you’re happy with how you’ve set things up and you’re ready to share it with the world! Until it’s done, your page isn’t public which means no one can donate to you so you’ll want to make sure you get it done as soon as possible after signing up! It takes less than 5 minutes and you can follow this tutorial video.
While you can still make changes to your page after you publish it, you won’t be able to reduce your fundraising goal or change the name and URL for your page past this point!
What is Tiltify?
Tiltify is a fundraising platform similar to sites such as JustGiving, Virgin Money Giving and GivePenny. It allows users to collect donations over the internet safely and securely with the money being raised sent directly to Blue Cross. It’s the one we’re using for this event as it has lots of specialist features which make it a great tool for anyone who is gaming or livestreaming to raise money for charity.
Can I use another fundraising platform such as JustGiving or Facebook?
We recommend using Tiltify for the 1897 Challenge however if you prefer you may use other platforms. The only downside to this is you will not be automatically eligible to receive the fundraising rewards so if using one of these methods you must contact [email protected] and provide them with a link to your fundraiser along with your postal address so you can be found on our system and added to the reports which are sent to our fulfilment team before they process and post rewards.
What are cause rewards?
Cause rewards are small items that Blue Cross enable for all of our fundraising events on Tiltify. We’ll produce them and then send them out at no cost to you, to anyone who chose to redeem them while donating to your Tiltify fundraising page.
This has the added benefit that people get a little reminder of being a pet hero, but also encouraging them to donate a little more than they might have done, so you’ll hit your goals faster, and we’ll be able to help even more pets! That’s a win-win-win right there!
You can enable them as part of your registration by selecting the enable all option or by following this guide.
If you’ve already registered and want to turn them on, then use this guide instead.
Got any other questions?
You can either join us on Discord or you can email [email protected] and we’ll be more than happy to help out.
