Comic Relief raised £15.1m in text donations
Howard Lake | 3 May 2011 | News
This year’s Comic Relief campaign raised £15,168,331 in SMS text donations. The 4.3 million text donations, in a combination of £1, £5 and £10 amounts, contributed significantly to the total £74.3 million raised so far.
In line with previous years, every penny donated via SMS is received by Comic Relief thanks to the mobile operators waiving their usual fees and the Treasury confirming that no VAT will be charged.
Mobile giving was faciliated by Mobile Interactive Group (MIG), which has helped Comic Relief with text mobile donations in 2009 for Red Nose Day and in 2010 for Sport Relief.
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This year was the first time that individuals could donate £10 by text. Viewers of the live Night of Comic Relief, which aired on BBC One on Friday 18 March, were invited to text YES to 70010.
Radha Chakraborty, Operations Director at Comic Relief said: “Text donations make up nearly 20% of the total raised so far and we extend our heartfelt thanks once again to the British public for their continuing support and generosity.”
Text donations were a feature of many aspects of the Red Nose Day campaign. For example, listeners to Radio One, inspired by the BT Red Nose Desert Trek by presenter Chris Moyles and other celebrities, were invited to donate £1 by texting the keyword ‘DESERT’ to 70011. A documentary about the desert trek was broadcast on BBC One in the run up to Red Nose Day and viewers were invited to text to donate £5.
The UK’s first 24 hour panel show, hosted by David Walliams on 5 March, also included a call to donate £5 by texting the keyword ‘FIVER’ to 70005.
The documentary ‘Famous, Rich and in the Slums’, which was broadcast on 3 and 10 March on BBC One and featured Lenny Henry and three other celebrities experiencing life in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum, had a text to donate element. Viewers were asked to text HELP to 70005 to donate £5 to the charity.
Additionally, Comic Relief created an app, which was free to download, and built a mobile internet site in-house, with MIG providing the text donation mechanic for the £1, £5 and £10 donations.
More on Red Nose Day 2011
- Comic Relief announces Red Nose Day 2011 technology partners (3 February 2011)
- Comic Relief raises record £74,360,207 on Red Nose Day 2011 (19 March 2011)
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.