Big Give Christmas Challenge raises record £28.6mn
Melanie May | 6 December 2022 | News
The match funding campaign has raised the record sum for over 1,000 charities, with this year’s donors giving over £4mn more than last year, which saw £24mn raised.
The Big Give Christmas Challenge kicked off on Giving Tuesday, 29 November, and ran until noon today (6 Dec). Supporters of the participating charities had the opportunity to double their donations with match funding for the campaign provided by a number of philanthropic champions, which this year include The Reed Foundation, The Childhood Trust, Julia & Hans Rausing Trust and Candis.
The campaign is also endorsed by Dame Judi Dench, Deborah Meaden, Chris Packham, Ruby Wax, Gabby Logan, Alexander Armstrong, Emilia Clarke, Bill Bailey and other celebrity supporters.
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Alex Day, Managing Director of Big Give, said:
“We are overwhelmed by the level of support people have shown during this year’s Christmas Challenge, which has raised a record sum despite the adverse economic climate.
“Our mission is simple, to multiply the impact of generous giving. This has been particularly important this year. To be able to support over 1,000 charities taking part in the Christmas Challenge campaign at a time when their work is never more needed is a huge privilege. We know that match funding resonates with the public, who have responded to the idea of doubling their donations at a time when everyone is feeling the squeeze. It once again reiterates the generosity of the British public.
“We are particularly thankful to our match funding champions, like The Reed Foundation, The Childhood Trust, Julia & Hans Rausing Trust and others, who also committed match funds in record sums.”
Katie Francis, Head of Fundraising at Jamie’s Farm commented:
“The success we have had to date simply would not have been possible without Big Give. To date, just over £1 million has been raised, helping bring our residential programme to thousands of disadvantaged young people across England and Wales. Big Give has brought in essential, core funding to run our programme and bring about positive, lasting change to young people’s wellbeing, life skills, behaviour, and engagement with learning.”
75% of the charities that participated in last year’s Christmas Challenge said they received more donations and 66% bigger donations versus comparable fundraising while on average, 33% of donations were estimated to be from new supporters.
Since fundraising began in 2008, Big Give has raised over £225 million for more than 14,000 different charities, including £3.8 million for the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal, £5.5 million for Covid-19 relief efforts and over £2 million for the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.
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.