Novamedia & Postcode Lotteries named Europe’s biggest charity donor
Melanie May | 20 December 2019 | News
Novamedia and the Postcode Lotteries has been named the biggest charity donor in Europe and the second biggest in the world, in the latest charity donor rankings.
The annual Giving List by business newspaper City AM has revealed that Novamedia – the creator and owner of the Postcode Lottery format – is Europe’s biggest private charity donor.
The list, which was compiled by independent researchers at nfpSynergy, also shows that Novamedia is the world’s second largest private charity funder. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation topped this year’s global list.
The global ranking shows the Gates Foundation donated USD 3.77bn, followed by Novamedia / Postcode Lotteries, on USD 881.6m. The Walton Family Foundation was third on USD 595.9m.
The European list has the UK’s Wellcome Trust in second place on USD 579m and Switzerland’s OAK Foundation in third place on USD 357.2m.
The news comes just weeks after People’s Postcode Lottery, which operates in Britain, revealed that its players have now raised more than £500 million for charities and good causes.
Novamedia is a social enterprise, headquartered in Amsterdam, which uses its investments in lotteries, media and publishing to contribute to a fairer, greener world.
Clara Govier, Managing Director of People’s Postcode Lottery, said:
“This research demonstrates the extraordinary success of the Postcode Lottery format. Charities across Britain and beyond are winning thanks to the support of our millions of players in England, Scotland and Wales.
“We are proud to be part of the Novamedia family and our sister lotteries in the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Norway, are also performing strongly. Together, our players are helping to achieve positive change for people and planet.”
The researchers who compiled the Giving List have called for greater transparency from major donors.
Joe Saxton, the founder of nfpSynergy, said:
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“Great effort has been made to take a clear and robust approach, using a consistent methodology over time to enable comparisons with the rankings which have been compiled for City AM each year since 2011.
“However, identifying the most generous institutional private charity donors around the globe in the financial year ending 2018 was by no means a straightforward task. As researchers, we would encourage institutional donors to be more transparent and open about sharing their financial data.”
The Postcode Lottery format was launched in the Netherlands in 1989, to raise money for charitable organisations. In 2005, the success of the Dutch Postcode Lottery prompted Novamedia to launch two more lotteries – People’s Postcode Lottery in Britain and Svenska PostkodLotteriet in Sweden.
People’s Postcode Lottery was first piloted in the north of England. Three years later, in 2008, it was launched in Scotland and since 2010 it has been operating throughout Britain.
In 2016, the Deutsche Postcode Lotterie was launched throughout Germany, followed by the Norsk Postkodelotteri in Norway in 2018.
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.