Service launches to get unused commercial air time to charities, & other news
Melanie May | 15 January 2024 | News
A service to help get unused commercial air time donated to charities; a new investment consultancy service for small charities, and donation news from online raffle platform Raffolux.
Online raffle platform gave £630,000 to charities in 2023
Raffolux donated over £630k to charities in 2023 with 17 charity partners receiving donations throughout the year, according to its The 2023 Winning Report.
Another 88 charities received donations from Raffolux for The Great Christmas Raffle. The company partnered with not-for-profit Charity Escapes and Vertu Motors for its fourth annual Christmas raffle.
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The three top charities for donations are Worldwide Cancer Research, Mental Health UK and Great Ormond Street, which have received £75,588, £70,694 and £42,021 respectively to date.
Worldwide Cancer Research commented:
“Corporate Partnerships are so important to us at Worldwide Cancer Research they help us in supporting our mission to find new ways to prevent, treat and cure cancer. We have been working in partnership with Raffolux since March 2019. We have generated much-needed funds, raising awareness of Worldwide Cancer Research and Raffolux and reaching out to new audiences. The team are great to work with and we are so thankful for their support.”
In 2023, Raffolux named over 85,000 winners, with a total of £12.5 million given away as prizes.
Top prizes included a Land Rover Defender bundle, a luxurious holiday to Barbados and several £10k cash prizes. Residents of London were the biggest Raffolux winners in 2023, followed by Belfast and Birmingham.
Broadstone launches investment consultancy service for small charities
Independent consultancy Broadstone has launched a Small Charities Investment Consultancy proposition.
It is designed specifically for small charities that require independent, expert advice on their investments, especially in light of the recent changes to the Charity Commission’s guidance, CC14. These changes urge Trustees to seek independent advice from experts if such expertise is not currently represented on their board and to view their investible assets as opportunities to align with their social impact objectives.
Smaller charities will be able to subscribe to Broadstone’s service to access a membership of similar organisations. Membership unlocks access to a range of tailored services like town hall events providing training on investments or workshop groups to support finance teams when drafting policies and updating investment information for accounts.
These sessions are guided by a Broadstone expert and aim to reduce costs by encouraging collaboration, networking and growth while smaller charities will still have access to a dedicated, expert consultant whenever they need advice or guidance.
Members also have access to Broadstone’s investment services at a reduced cost to support smaller charities’ budgets.
Rachel Titchen, Charities and Investment Director at Broadstone, said:
“Subscribing to the service, will mean joining a membership of small charities who are encouraged to work together with access to Broadstone-led initiatives like training and workshops to develop Investment Policies.
“This means smaller charities receive a package of cost-effective but tailored services that will help them to meet the CC14 requirement of using expert independent advice. A Broadstone investment expert is always on hand to support whenever additional advice or guidance is needed.”
Audio website launches for Third Sector to distribute commercials & content to radio stations
Charity Fillers has launched with the aim of pairing up UK Third Sector organisations and radio stations so that unused commercial airtime can be donated for use by charities.
The new service is similar to the ‘Radio Fillers’ service provided by the UK Government’s Cabinet Office that enable Public Bodies to distribute ‘Public Service Announcements’ to radio and TV stations for broadcast.
Registered charities and UK based radio stations can sign up for a user account free of charge at charityfillers.co.uk. Once set up, charities will be able to upload to the website with accompanying copy clearance details, and radio stations will then be able to choose which audio they download and play on their station.
Stations are limited in that they must not play a single piece of audio more than 28 times in week. The only commitment from the radio station is that they file an online report each week detailing the number of times a ‘commercial’ has been played on their station. These reports are then collated by Charity Fillers and forwarded to the charity so they can gauge the effectiveness of using Charity Fillers.
Steve Delahaye of C.I. Broadcasting, the company behind the scheme said:
“The idea came to us one day when we were discussing how to fill some unfilled airtime on our radio stations. We were already users of the ‘Radio Fillers’ service from the Cabinet Office, but they are very limited in the number of campaigns they distribute, and we thought there must be a way to get other worthwhile organisations involved, so ‘Charity Fillers’ was born.”
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.