300 charities sign up for this year’s Big Give Christmas Challenge
Melanie May | 16 November 2016 | News
More than 300 charities are involved in the UK’s biggest match funding campaign, the Big Give Christmas Challenge, which launches on #GivingTuesday this year.
Together, the charities are expected to raise around £7.5 million in 72 hours following the campaign launch at 12pm on 29th November.
Participating charities include Canine Partners, Act4Africa, and ASH Wales and span a wide variety of causes including child poverty, reducing loneliness amongst the elderly, international development, arts, the environment, and animals.
Donations made between 12pm on 29th November and 12pm on 2nd December will be matched by a combination of charities’ key supporters and Big Give Champions. The Champions are philanthropic organisations who donate matching funds. This year they include The Reed Foundation, The Childhood Trust, Candis Magazine, Big Lottery Fund and The Postcode Support Trust.
The Big Give is also trying a geographical approach with this year’s Christmas Challenge, partnering with the Big Lottery Fund and The Waterloo Foundation to support 21 charities working in Wales who will be raising funds collaboratively to raise support for the welfare of people in the country. Funds will also be ring-fenced for participating charities.
Alex Day, director of The Big Give, said:
“We’re excited for this year’s campaign, particularly because we’ve had the opportunity to listen to feedback from charities and implement changes to the campaign. Match funds are expected to last a lot longer than usual because they will be ring-fenced for each charity this year. We hope as many people as possible can join us on #GivingTuesday to donate to a cause they feel passionately about.”
Since the Big Give launched the campaign in 2008, the Christmas Challenge has raised over £71 million for more than 2,500 charity projects. Last year, the event raised over £6.4m in the first three days with 258 charities participating.
A number of tweets have already gone out from participating charities to raise public awareness and support of the event:
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On Tue 29th Nov its #GivingTuesday and we're taking part in the @BigGive where donations pledged will be doubled! https://t.co/k1uHgoVITn
— ChildAid (@childaidrr) November 15, 2016
From 29 November to 2 December, any donation made to us will be doubled for the Big Give's Christmas Challenge: https://t.co/3mISdVdjvG pic.twitter.com/mmtfSxfJpg
— National Literacy Trust (@Literacy_Trust) November 14, 2016
Not long til the @BigGive #Christmaschallenge2016 goes live 29th Nov.What's it all about?Watch our video to find out https://t.co/42MaCVLkE8
— Pump Aid (@PumpAid) November 10, 2016
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.