One night , after a long day at work, a large glass of wine and a particularly stressful episode of The Archers, I had an idea that went viral overnight. You can read more about the idea here, but basically it was this: could I set up a Just Giving page for a fictional character and raise money to help her? Then use social media to spread the word to thousands of fans of #thearchers?

The idea for page was a ‘rescue fund’ to help a female character in a slow-burn storyline that was brilliantly acted and written by The Archers team – and it became something of a sensation. The real-life charity - who were receiving the very real-life money that was being raised - was Refuge.

Over the course of about seven months hard work on Twitter (ah, the good old days), working with the brilliant comms team at Refuge, who wholeheartedly embraced my impromptu efforts, more than 8,000 donations were made and (including Gift Aid) over £200,000 was raised, (the single largest individual piece of fundraising in the charity’s history). All from an idea, an initial few paragraphs of copy on a Just Giving page and a lot of frantic tweeting.

I learned a huge amount, both on a personal and professional level, from the experience. Watching the donations roll in, accompanied by moving, powerful comments from hundreds of people, many of whom had friends and family who had personal experience of domestic abuse, I quickly realised that there was almost nothing I could write - nothing anybody could write - that could match the powerful emotion of their words.

So I would screengrab a handful of those comments each day and share (along with the donation link) - and social media and #thearchers community did the rest. All amplified by Refuge and their social media footprint.

The campaign we ran together won Third Sector’s Digital Campaign of the Year and was nominated for a host of other gongs. All of which pales into insignificance when compared with the good that Refuge were able to do with the money, and the small part we played in the wider storyline that gripped a nation of radio listeners, in raising awareness of domestic abuse.