Big Give opens applications for £2m Christmas match fund

05 Jun 2017 News

The Big Give has launched this year’s Christmas Challenge fund, with £2.2m available so far, as the funder says it expects this year’s appeal to be “bigger and better than before”.

The Big Give is a charity which was founded by Sir Alec Reed in 2007 to provide a platfrom to encourage giving. The Christmas Challenge match funding campaign is its biggest initiative. 

Since the initiative was launched in 2008 it has raised £78m and has made number of changes for this year as it hopes to operate on a bigger scale. 

Funding is generally provided by trusts and foundations, which the Big Give refers to as “champions”. 

This year the charity said that it had a “70 per cent increase in confirmed champions at this stage” with four new funders pledging match funding.

The Coles-Medlock Foundation, The Four Acre Trust and The Hospital Saturday Fund are participating for the first time and are providing funding alongside The Reed Foundation, The Childhood Trust, Ethiopiaid, Candis and others. 

The Big Give said more funders could still come on board. 

In 2015 and 2016 the Big Give raised £7.2m for charities. It peaked in 2011 when it raised £12m, but it has faced criticism over its fee structure and being overly complex in the past. 

Changes this year 

This year funds will be ring-fenced for each participating charity “so that they are not competing with each other for funds” the charity said. 

The campaign will also run continuously over seven days “so it’s much more simple for donors to understand” and will launch on the same day as #GivingTuesday to generate more awareness.  

Alex Day, director at Big Give, said: “We are really looking forward to this year’s campaign which is set to be bigger and better than before.”

 


 

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