# Campaign against Marriage Tax Allowance generates £122,850 in charity pledges

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2010/04/28/campaign-against-marriage-tax-allowance-generates-122850-charity-pledges/
- Published: 2010-04-28T09:16:28+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The ‘Don’t Judge My Family’ campaign against the Conservative Party’s Marriage Tax
Allowance in the General Election campaign has generated pledges of £122,850 to 
charity. Its organisers, who have achieved considerable national media coverage,
have invited supporters to pledge to give the proposed £3 a week tax break to charity,
should the Conservatives win the Election and implement the policy.

So far 2,295 people have signed up and the pledge total stands at £122,850. On the
campaign’s “They need it more than me” page, the organisers list and link to children,
family and relationship charities that they argue would benefit more from the £3
a week gift. These include Barnardo’s, Relate, Gingerbread, Women’s Aid and National
Association of Widows.

This is a good example of turning a popular, single-issue campaign to the advantage
of charities. Not only can supporters sign up to join the campaign, they can be 
offered a chance to put their money where their mouth is. In particular, the money
would benefit not the campaign organisers but a range of independent charities.

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Will all this money end up in the charities’ coffers even if the Conservatives win
the General Election? I doubt it. It’s very easy to pledge money in this way, especially
as that act alone can be seen as sending a message. Still, it’s another example 
of ‘freelance fundraisers’ in action: members of the public who can use web tools
to create a campaign to fundraise for one or more charities with probably no direct
input or initial support from the charity.

www.dontjudgemyfamily.com/home/Theyneeditmore.html

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