Search is on for the UK face of #givingtuesday 2016
Howard Lake | 27 September 2016 | News
The #givingtuesday campaign is inviting nominations for its charity champion, someone who has shown extraordinary commitment to a charity, and who could inspire the British public to do some good. The person selected will be the UK face of this year’s #givingtuesday, the global day of giving.
Led in the UK by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), Giving Tuesday will take place on Tuesday 29 November. It encourages people to ‘do good stuff’ for causes they care about following the annual shopping frenzy of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
The winner will receive a donation to a charity of their choice and will be rewarded with a hot air balloon ride over the UK countryside.
Record-breaking day for giving
Founded in the USA, this will be the third year that Giving Tuesday has been held in the UK. It is being marked in 70 countries now.
In 2015 it broke a Guinness World Record for the most online donations in 24 hours: at one point £6,000 a minute was being donated online to UK charities, with more than 1,400 charities and businesses connecting with the movement.
Celebrity supporters including JK Rowling, Lily Allen and Gary Lineker helped ensure widespread coverage and involvement.
Panel of judges
Last year’s winner was Andrew Davies. He became the first UK #givingtuesday champion after pledging to raise £150,000 for Sheffield Children’s Hospital which supported him through a bone marrow transplant. As #givingtuesday champion he spoke at events at the Houses of Parliament and BT Tower and had his fundraising efforts profiled by the Guardian and BBC.
He will be one of the judges who will select this year’s winner.
The other judges on the panel are Paul Stanworth, Assistant Editor at BBC Newsbeat; Mika Simmons, actress and founder of Gynaecological Cancer Fund’s Lady Garden campaign; Zoe Parkinson from Vice Magazine and Mike Buonaiuto, CEO of social change company Shape History.
Hannah Terrey, Head of Policy and Campaigns at CAF, said:
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“We hope our charity champion search will discover a star who already embodies the campaign through their commitment to charity and who can inspire lots of other people to become involved and do good stuff.
“The person we’re searching for will have gone above and beyond to support a charity in some way. They might have raised loads of money or maybe they’ve volunteered hundreds of hours. They might even work for a charity and have committed their whole lives to doing good stuff”.
Nominations for the #givingtuesday charity champion 2016 are now open, and close on 14 October. Entrants need to aged 16 or over and reside in the UK.
A shortlist will be announced on Monday 17 October and the winner revealed on Tuesday 1 November.
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.