my.actionforchildren.org.uk encourages local giving
Howard Lake | 9 February 2011 | News
Action for Children has launched an online giving platform that enables people to find the charity’s projects near them and to donate to the project that matters to them.
The my.actionforchildren.org.uk site was driven by the charity’s belief that people wanted to help locally but weren’t always sure how and where to direct their support.
The charity has today published a ComRes poll of 2,000 people which backs up this view. It shows that 77% of people who are concerned about children in their local community either don’t know how to help, or don’t have the time, and 71% would like to have more information about how to help children in their area.
The poll also found that 89% prefer to donate money when they have a choice of what they are contributing to, and 86% want to know specifically what their donations buy.
Action for Children is asking people to visit my.actionforchildren.org.uk, enter their postcode and decide who and where to help. They will find that they can give from as little as £2 for football kit or dancing lessons for young carers, or higher sums to help fund a minibus or washing machine to help disabled children.
The new website is being promoted by a range of celebrities including Jessica Hynes, Dakota Blue Richards, Frank Lampard, Annie Lennox, Vanilla Ice and Dame Judi Dench. Duncan Bannatyne is fronting the advertising campaign for the site.
Dame Clare Tickell, chief executive of Action for Children, said: “Like most good ideas, my.actionforchildren.org.uk is very simple. Our staff work in more than 400 projects across the country and they know the specific things that will make a real difference locally. Anyone can log on and choose to give local children something that many, luckier, children take for granted.”
The site was designed and developed by Open Fundraising and built by charity web specialists 9Web.
The site is part of a trend towards personalised, project-based online fundraising sites such as Cancer Research UK’s MyProjects and DonorsChoose.org. It also builds on the popularity of the virtual gift catalogues of the past five or more years, such as OxfamUnwrapped and the Good Gifts Catalogue where donors get to choose which item they ‘buy’ and donate.
my.actionforchildren.org.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.