BT says give by direct debit and donate savings to ChildLine
Howard Lake | 8 March 2004 | News
BT is encouraging its 19 million residential customers to pay their BT bills by monthly direct debit, qualify for a monthly £1 discount off their bill, and then donate it to ChildLine.
BT’s idea gives a new twist to the meaning of giving by direct debit. Indeed, the model could be implemented by any utility company or organisation for whom direct debit payments yield commercial savings.
The direct debit promotion is part of BT’s ‘Am I Listening?’ campaign and could yield a valuable sustainable income for the children’s charity.
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Customers taking part could pass on £12 a year to the charity a year. To activate the automatic donation, customers that already pay by direct debit and those that wish to begin paying by direct debit, simply need to call freephone 0800 169 8585 and state that they would like to donate their saving to ChildLine.
Beth Courtier, head of charity programmes at BT, said: “Through the ‘Am I Listening?’ campaign, which launched in October 2002, we’ve raised over £2.1 million already. With the help of our millions of customers, we’d like this Billing proposition to significantly boost this figure.”
The initiative will be further promoted across the country on billboards from April 2004. The billboard space has been donated to the ‘Am I Listening?’ campaign by billboard company, JCDecaux. The adverts will appear on 48-sheet billboards at 2,000 sites, as well as at hundreds of six-sheet sites, over the next six months.
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.