MARY Stevens Hospice in Stourbridge has teamed-up with innovative online giving platform GivePenny.com to raise money for its ambitious £3million redevelopment appeal.

The Hagley Road charity is using GivePenny to process its biggest-ever fundraising campaign - which aims to see the day services unit completely remodelled and upgraded for the first time since it was opened in 1991 by the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

The hospice is one of the first charities to sign up to the new digital donation platform - founded by Stourbridge entrepreneurs Lee Clark, Richard Waldron and Ed Russell.

GivePenny, which was shortlisted in Richard Branson's Virgin Media VOOM business pitching competition earlier this year, offers an alternative way of making donations and gives fundraisers chance to collect sponsorship for achieving personal goals and milestones.

Features include the ability for fundraisers to link their GivePenny profile to tracking apps like Fitbit and RunKeeper, connecting health and lifestyle data to fundraising activity.

Lee Clark, co-founder of GivePenny, said: “The GivePenny team and I are so proud to be helping Mary Stevens Hospice with the capital appeal. Some of us are Stourbridge residents, so we're particularly excited to be involved with such an amazing cause that does such good for the local community.

"We hope supporters of the hospice have lots of fun using the GivePenny website to encourage donations, whether it's being sponsored to count things or to motivate them to reach for their personal goals.

"We've already been blown away by the imagination shown by the fundraising public, with past challenges raising money based on counting steps, miles and the amount of weight lost, through to the number of jokes told, hugs given and days without coffee."

Hospice spokesman Dan Malin said: “We met the guys from GivePenny earlier this year and were thoroughly impressed both by their concept and their platform.

"With the expectation that there will be a huge surge in online donations as part of this fundraising campaign, it is important for us to ensure that we have a close relationship with a trusted partner to make the process as smooth as it possibly can be, and give us the best chance of reaching our goal of helping more and more families in the Dudley borough.

"With GivePenny, we know we've found exactly that and we're confident this is the start of something incredibly exciting for both organisations."

To donate via GivePenny go to www.givepenny.com/msh-capital-appeal, or to start a fundraising challenge click www.givepenny.com/appeal/capital-appeal.

To find out more about GivePenny, email happiness@givepenny.com or call 0121 271 0303.

Anyone interested in supporting the hospice's fundraising campaign can email info@mshfundraising.co.uk or call 01384 377778.