The Myton Hospices: Winner of The Lotteries Council Awards 2025 – Campaign of the Year

Success stories

July 18, 2025

Chris Godber (far left) and Charlotte Ingram (second from right) from The Myton Hospices, at The Lotteries Council 2025 Awards Ceremony

29 YEARS

of lottery partnership

£34 million

net proceeds raised since launch

35,250

weekly playing entries

For launching their innovative new Summer Jackpot Raffle, Myton was awarded the prestigious “Campaign of the Year” award at The Lotteries Council 2025 Annual Award Ceremony.

By embracing a perceived risk with innovative thinking, The Myton Hospices transformed a challenge into a significant opportunity, unlocking the potential to positively maximize their funding income. The team at Myton stepped up to the challenge and showed extreme resilience in the face of adversity, driven by a passion and desire to continue providing their services at the highest standard. For this and for launching an innovative new campaign, they’ve been awarded – and we are delighted for this recognition.

The reward of thinking outside the box

Towards the backend of 2024, Myton launched their innovative Jackpot Draw, a new initiative that will help the hospices raise an extra £250,000 in 2025 – all from their existing lottery players.

Since 1982, The Myton Hospices located in Coventry and Warwickshire, have been providing specialist palliative care to people across the West Midlands. Their mission is as strong as their heritage which started over four decades ago, to provide high-quality specialist care and support to people aged 18 years and over, living with terminal illnesses. The care provided is a free service, offered from the point of diagnosis to the end of life, to patients and their families.

Burdened by the overwhelming financial pressure to ensure the cost of running the facilities and the ability to maintain the level of service required to support the individuals, families, and communities they serve, Myton had to think outside the box. Because of their desire to preserve what they’ve built over decades, not willing to back down, downsize, or disappoint but instead embrace the challenge and think BIG, an idea sparked that led to a highly successful fundraising campaign.

As a charity, only 17% of funding comes from the NHS. To provide the vital services they offer free of charge to patients and their loved ones, the hospices need to raise over £12 million a year. In 2024, they supported over 2,000 people and their families via the hospice’s patient and family support services and in the community through Myton at Home.

Maximising opportunities from the weekly lottery

In order to reduce the deficit between income and expenditure, they turned their attention to the weekly lottery to explore other opportunities to increase the income generated from their most loyal supporters.

After meticulous planning and ideation, Myton pushed forward and the campaign went live in 2024. A new annual draw for the chance to win £25,000 was launched to existing lottery supporters. All Direct Debit supporters were automatically increased by £1 per month, giving them 12 entries into the draw. The new draw also offers supporters a chance to purchase additional entries closer to the time but essentially, they have increased their income from existing supporters by £250,000 using the Direct Debit guarantee.

This simple yet effective idea creates zero risk for players. There are no additional steps or actions required from supporters, it’s a seamless journey with no impact to their online experience. New entries can opt out if they do not wish to participate in the £25,000 Summer Jackpot; they simply have to untick a box.

A simple yet risky idea that resulted in a favourable outcome

When the team at Myton presented their idea to maximise income potential from existing supporters to StarVale, we advised that they should consider the impact of a negative outcome. Automatically increasing all Direct Debit payments by £1 a month could potentially cause reputational risk, if supporters felt unhappy about being auto-enrolled into the new Jackpot Draw. Because of how the team managed communications; their soft tone, positive, persuasive language, being open and transparent, and clearly explaining the reason, benefit and impact of being auto-enrolled into the Jackpot Draw, the potential risk was averted.

Myton’s simple yet risky idea resulted in a win-win situation as the real winners are the individuals and their families who benefit directly from the lottery income.