goDonate: keep campaigns running past Christmas Day
Howard Lake | 28 September 2026 | News
Charities should keep their festive fundraising campaigns running right up to and including Christmas Day, according to new analysis from donation platform goDonate, which found that donations peak in the final days before 25 December, with some giving continuing on the day itself.
Giving peaks in the final 72 hours
goDonate‘s annual review of Christmas giving, based on donations made through its platform in December 2025, found that around one in six (15%) of one-off donations made during the month happened in the final 72 hours before Christmas. The seven days from 15 to 21 December 2025 alone accounted for 27% of all December one-off donations, while around 2% of one-off donations in December were made on Christmas Day itself.
The findings suggest that charities which wind down their festive campaigns too early risk missing a significant share of potential donations.
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Mobile and digital wallets dominate over the festive period
The report also highlights a marked shift to mobile giving as donation volumes peak. Two thirds (67%) of Christmas Eve one-off donations were made on mobile devices where device data was available, rising to 77% of one-off donations made on Christmas Day itself. Across December as a whole, the mobile share was 57%.
Digital wallets also featured more heavily as Christmas approached: over half (53%) of Christmas Eve one-off payments were made using PayPal, Apple Pay or Google Pay, compared with 47% across December overall.
When planning this year’s Christmas appeals, the data points to two practical takeaways:
- keep campaigns and donation pages live through to and including Christmas Day
- and ensure checkout journeys are optimised for mobile and digital wallet giving throughout December.
- Charity Christmas campaign films in 2025 (24 November 2025)
- Almost 40% of one-off donations now made by digital wallet (2 March 2023)
- Significant YOY rise in digital wallet use for one-off regular donations, GoDonate data shows (25 April 2024)
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.