Barnardo’s has launched an emergency appeal to raise nearly £3m after discovering a 34 per cent increase in demand for its child sexual exploitation services within one year.

The children’s charity launched the campaign on 3 February and is contacting its 110,000 supporters with an appeal for urgent donations to be made by the end of March. The charity has calculated that it needs to invest £3m into its child sexual exploitation services in 2014/15.

Supporters are being mailed to ask to support child sexual exploitation services in their region, but the charity is also hoping to recruit new donors as part of the appeal. A spokeswoman for the charity said that the primary aim of the appeal is a one-off cash donation, but it also offers supporters the option of signing up to a regular donation. It expects most of its income to come from existing supporters receiving the mailings.

The campaign launch this Monday was preceded by social media activity, and Barnardo’s will continue to promote the appeal via social media advertising, regional pay-per-click, social media advertising as well as displace advertising targeting its core audience across the web.