Marie Curie’s website was unavailable for more than a day this week and is thought to be one of a number affected by an “unprecedented electrical surge” experienced by its IT partner.
The charity’s online services include information and support for people affected by terminal illness, an online chat service and donation functionality.
During the downtime, a holding page on the site directed people to a JustGiving page for donations and gave telephone numbers to access support.
Marie Curie told Civil Society that its site went down on Wednesday morning and was back up by early Thursday evening. It said it had been told by its service provider Eduserv that “a power outage was the cause”.
Occasional downtime is expected when operating a website, but it is unusual for large organisations to experience more than a few hours.
In a statement, Eduserv, which is itself a charity, said: “At 0803 on 22nd August, Eduserv experienced an unprecedented electrical surge that caused damage to some of the circuits in our datacentre. The vast majority of services were restored the following day and it is anticipated that the handful that remain will be up and running today, the 24th August.
“We are very grateful for the patience and understanding of all of our clients throughout the incident.”
Eduserv would not say how many charity websites had been affected. A spokeswoman said: “Unfortunately we are not authorised to comment any further.”
A case study on Eduserv’s website says the organisation had worked with Marie Curie to bolster its website capacity ahead of a television fundraising campaign.
The Information Commissioner’s Office was among a number of public sector organisations affected, with its website being offline from Wednesday morning until around 8.30pm on Thursday.
In a statement yesterday before the ICO's site was restored, deputy chief executive Paul Arnold said: "Our website is currently unavailable. We know how important our website is to those who use it and I would like to offer my sincere apologies for the current unavailability of the service".
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