Rackspace aids British Heart Foundation’s mission to beat heartbreak by 2030

The move to Microsoft Azure accelerates the charity’s goal to create a world free from the fear of heart and circulatory diseases by 2030 with infrastructure that provides a foundation for growth and supports increased fundraising efforts. The website has become increasingly important for driving this mission by housing fundraising campaigns, the online retail business and acting as a source of information for all stakeholders.

Working with Rackspace, the migration to Microsoft Azure, has given the charity a scalable platform that is reliable and has an uptime of 99.9% to capture digital donations from across the globe.

Rackspace Professional Services worked collaboratively with the charity, from designing the solution through to technical implementation. The migration took six months without a minute of downtime. One of The British Heart Foundation website’s recent campaign’s drove a significant traffic spike without encountering any of the issues the website faced in the past.

Mary O’Callaghan, Director of Technology Engagement at the British Heart Foundation said: “As our IT set up moves from being a service provider to a core part of how we achieve our organisational objectives, both the wider business and the IT team itself has had to adopt a different mindset.”

“A true partnership has been formed with the Rackspace Professional Services team who have supported us at every step of the process with unbiased expertise, deep platform knowledge, and a strong understanding of our operating environment.”

Adam Evans, Director of Professional Services, EMEA at Rackspace said: “It was crucial for us to work collaboratively with the British Heart Foundation to bridge the gap between its existing platform and an infrastructure ready to support its 2030 goal. Our Professional Services team got to know the business inside out before designing and delivering the infrastructure, automation and migration which was crucial to meeting the charity’s business objectives”.

Lee James, CTO, EMEA at Rackspace added: “To achieve such an ambitious and important mission, the British Heart Foundation needed to totally transform the role technology played within the organisation. Beyond the cloud migration project, we’re proud to be helping the organisation with ongoing strategic guidance on how to use technology to improve the overall stakeholder experience, scale fundraising efforts, and ultimately, work towards its promise of beating heartbreak from heart and circulatory diseases.”

The British Heart Foundation is the largest independent funder of research into heart and circulatory diseases in the UK, which it supports through voluntary contributions, physical stores, and its online retail business. As part of its strategy to 2030, the charity wants to drive advances across the spectrum of heart and circulatory diseases, preventing these conditions from developing, as well as enabling those with existing conditions to lead better, longer lives.