# BT says give by direct debit and donate savings to ChildLine

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/03/08/bt-says-give-direct-debit-and-donate-savings-childline/
- Published: 2004-03-08T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**BT is encouraging its 19 million residential customers to pay their BT bills by
monthly direct debit, qualify for a monthly £1 discount off their bill, and then
donate it to ChildLine.**

BT’s idea gives a new twist to the meaning of giving by direct debit. Indeed, the
model could be implemented by any utility company or organisation for whom direct
debit payments yield commercial savings.

The direct debit promotion is part of BT’s ‘Am I Listening?’ campaign and could 
yield a valuable sustainable income for the children’s charity.

## Advertisement

 [⌊Posthub advert. You create the campaign. We'll handle the postal journey. Get started at post-hub.co.uk.⌉](https://fundraising.co.uk/ads/posthub-20261007-300x250/)

Customers taking part could pass on £12 a year to the charity a year. To activate
the automatic donation, customers that already pay by direct debit and those that
wish to begin paying by direct debit, simply need to call freephone 0800 169 8585
and state that they would like to donate their saving to ChildLine.

Beth Courtier, head of charity programmes at BT, said: “Through the ‘Am I Listening?’
campaign, which launched in October 2002, we’ve raised over £2.1 million already.
With the help of our millions of customers, we’d like this Billing proposition to
significantly boost this figure.”

The initiative will be further promoted across the country on billboards from April
2004. The billboard space has been donated to the ‘Am I Listening?’ campaign by 
billboard company, JCDecaux. The adverts will appear on 48-sheet billboards at 2,000
sites, as well as at hundreds of six-sheet sites, over the next six months.

 * **[Charities welcome Chancellor's voluntary sector initiatives](https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/03/17/charities-welcome-chancellor039s-voluntary-sector-initiatives/)**(
   17 March 2004)
 * **[VAT on London Marathon charity runners “could reach £5 million”](https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/04/14/vat-london-marathon-charity-runners-quotcould-reach-5mquot/)**(
   14 April 2004)
 * **[VAT and the London Marathon](https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/04/15/vat-and-london-marathon/)**(
   15 April 2004)