Text donations raise £3.4m for Sports Relief

Fundraising | Vibeka Mair | 8 Apr 2010

Sports Relief’s first foray into text donations has generated £3.4m in just two months for its 2010 campaign, which has raised £31.6m overall so far this year.

The text donation service, offered by Sports Relief for the first time this year, solicited mobile donations of either £1, £5 or £10. All text donations benefitted from 100% out payments thanks to mobile network operators waiving their usual fees.

Success stories included the BT Sport Relief Million Pound Bike Ride which generated £700,000 in just under 82 hours via £1 and £5 mobile donations.

Eddie Izzard’s staggering run of 43 marathons in 51 days around the UK raised over £1.1m through £5 text donations, while Christine Bleakley’s water ski across the English Channel raised over £900,000 in £5 text donations from viewers of The One Show.

Caroline Lien, Operations Director, Sport Relief, said “I would like to say a massive thank you to the mobile industry and HM Treasury for their continued support. Mobile has proven to be an extremely popular channel for us as it appeals to a wide audience demographic, and enables an instant donation at various price points. I’d also like to thank MIT’s Client Services and Operations team for their help and dedication throughout the campaign.”

Comic Relief will be able to claim at least 25% extra from the Government on top of all of the donations made by text up to 31 July 2010 for all those who texted to donate and signed up to gift aid online.

Mobile Interactive Technology (MIT) is part of global integrated mobile and digital communications business Mobile Interactive Group (MIG).

Directory: Comic Relief

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