World Vision has seen the fundraising future and it is The Story Shop: Charity launches innovative experience to engage shoppers

World Vision is blazing a trail with the launch of an innovative, fully interactive experience to engage shoppers.

The Story Shop is already in operation at Westfield Shepherd's Bush and launched this week  at the shopping mall's Stratford site.

At first glance, The Story Shop appears to be a vintage specialist store with wooden cabinets displaying curios from around the globe. However, the ground-breaking project uses the latest digital technology to ensure visitors can interact with about 100 individual stories from across the world and have an opportunity to sponsor a child or make a one-off donation.

Shoppers passing what initially appears to be a full-length mirror, may be amazed to discover it is actually an interactive computer screen. Activated by movement, the screen summons a young girl who waves to passers-by. She encourages visitors to put their hand against hers on the screen, initiating pop-up details of her life story.

Visitors to The Story Shop are also encouraged to open drawers in the wooden cabinets, which activates videos that illustrate the lives and challenges faced by children from Cambodia to Syria. Shoppers keen to sponsor a child are shown individual profiles of children they can sponsor, with embedded video from each child.

The option to "tap to donate" via contactless card or Apple pay has also been built into the store to allow people to give directly to the charity's crisis support. All payments and donations are handled electronically.

Emily Desborough, World Vision Experiential Marketing Manager, explained that World Vision has taken a new direction to engage old and new supporters in response to the changing nature of media and fundraising.

"The Story Shop is a fantastic new way of opening a window into the work we do and giving supporters a deeper understanding of it," she said. "We want donors to walk away not only feeling good about what they have just given, but also amazed and overwhelmed with the difference they can make and the journey they are only just beginning."

The Story Shop, which would not be out of place in a corner of an upmarket department store, will open in two further locations before the end of the year.