Having framed the brief and the challenge, we quickly came upon the idea of using unused space in email. Potentially, there is unused space in any email. But with out-of-office emails, the message is limited and generally not mission-critical. This meant there was no concern about media placements distracting or detracting from the sender’s message.

Every day in the UK, workers generate 51 million out-of-office emails. As advertising space, we estimate that these emails are worth £1 for every thousand emails. That’s media worth up to £51,000 that charities could access every day, using Dooonate. This would help non-profits save money and increase marketing effectiveness.

We created dooonate.com, an easy-to-use tool that lets anyone donate the space on their out-of-office emails to a good cause. To donate the space in your out-of-office email, simply:

1. Visit Dooonate.com

2. Enter your email address and password (don’t worry, it’s completely secure)

3. Write your out-of-office email message.

4. Choose a charity

5. And that’s it! You’ve created a free ad for the charity you picked.

When building Dooonate, the main challenge was to find a way to display an image within an automated-reply. Most email systems will either remove images from an out-of-office email or simply classify the mail as spam, in which case the user never sees it. We had to develop a way of embedding images which wouldn’t set off spam filters.

Dooonate’s potential reach is huge. It works with Microsoft Office365, which is used by more than 120m businesses worldwide. This gives charities access to billions of out-of-office emails in countries around the world, letting them increase engagement while cutting media spend. For now, Dooonate is open to 8,000 employees in our agency network, with whom we are testing the tool. Once this test is complete (estimated Oct 2018), it will be available to all Office365 users, worldwide.

UK numbers alone illustrate the potential of Dooonate: Brits send 340,000,000 work emails a day. 15% — 51,000,000 — are out-of-office emails. We estimate the value of the space in these emails at £1 per thousand. That’s £51,000 worth of free media every day. Over the course of a year, the total value of free media available to British charities through Dooonate would be £11,475,000.

Dooonate will be free for charities and users.