# 350 charities take part in The Big Give Christmas Challenge 2012

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2012/12/05/350-charities-take-part-big-give-christmas-challenge-2012/
- Published: 2012-12-05T07:10:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**The Big Give Christmas Challenge 2012 gets underway tomorrow at 10am, with the
aim of doubling online donations to hundreds of charities to match pledges from 
the charities' major donors.**

Individual donors will be able to 'Double Their Donation' up to £5,000 per charity.
As many charities will remember from previous Big Give challenges, donations are
matched on a first come, first served basis, and funds available for matching often
run out very quickly.

Since the Big Give was founded in 2007, its four Christmas Challenges have helped
to raise over £30 million for charity projects all around the world, with £3 million
being claimed in Gift Aid.

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The fundraising began earlier this week with the Christmas Challenge Launch Party,
held at Fortnum & Mason in Piccadilly. Online tickets for this event sold out in
only 13 minutes last month, helping to raise over £60,000 for charities registered
on theBigGive.org.uk.

## How the Christmas Challenge works

The Christmas Challenge 2012 is divided into sectors, each of them with a Charity
Champion – private individuals, companies, trusts and foundations offering to match
online donations to their chosen charities. Charities within each sector compete
with each other for the Charity Champion's matched funding.

Matching funds will be released at 10am on Thursday 6th, Friday 7th and Saturday
8th December. The Big Give urged donors to "get online at, or as close as possible
to, 10am on one of these three days to maximise the chance of making a matched donation".

Once the matched funding has been used up on a given day, that sector will pause
until more funds are released on the next day. If a donor is unable to make a matched
donation, they will receive a message encouraging them to come back the next day
for another chance to “Double Their Donation”.

## Thai Children's Trust

One of the charities taking part is [Thai Children’s Trust](http://www.thaichildrenstrust.org.uk).
It is hoping to raise £50,000 from the Big Give for the Burma Children Medical Fund
which funds medical care for Burmese migrant children in Thailand who have long-
term health conditions and serious injuries.

[www.thebiggive.org.uk](http://www.thebiggive.org.uk)

 * **[The Big Give announces The Summer Give matched funding campaign](https://fundraising.co.uk/2015/03/02/big-give-announces-summer-give-matched-funding-campaign/)**(
   2 March 2015)
 * **[The Summer Give match-funding campaign gets underway for London school children](https://fundraising.co.uk/2015/06/01/the-summer-give-match-funding-campaign-gets-underway-for-london-school-children/)**(
   1 June 2015)
 * **[Applications to Big Give Christmas Challenge 2015 now open](https://fundraising.co.uk/2015/07/06/applications-to-big-give-christmas-challenge-2015-now-open/)**(
   6 July 2015)