Supporting Charities

BBC Outreach, July 2012 Update on Supporting Charities Welcome to the fourth BBC Outreach update on aspects of our corporate responsibility work at the BBC. Here we aim to explain how our work with charities fits with the BBC’s own goals and values, and how we set out to maximise the benefits that our charitable activity can have. Previous updates have focused on how we manage our environmental impacts; our business practices as a responsible employer; and how our outreach work beyond broadcasting matches our stated public purposes. These regular online publications appear alongside our annual Corporate Responsibility Performance Review, as well as our six- weekly newsletters. The BBC has three corporate charities and supports specific independent charities with broadcast appeals. It also encourages its staff to volunteer in support of good causes, particularly in areas of the UK where large numbers of our staff are based. CORPORATE CHARITIES INDEPENDENT CHARITIES BBC Children in Need Comic Relief BBC Children in Need aims to change the lives of Comic Relief supports projects to relieve poverty and disadvantaged children and young people across the fight social injustice internationally and in the UK. The UK by telling their stories, supporting fund-raising and BBC partners the charity with on-air support for Red making grants to large and small projects. A record Nose Day and Sport Relief in alternate years. Sport £47m was raised in 2011/12 Relief raised a record £62.5m in 2011/12. BBC Media Action Regular Appeals BBC Media Action uses media and communication Regular broadcast appeals include weekly Radio 4 to help reduce poverty and support people in appeals, BBC One’s monthly Lifeline appeals, the Blue understanding their rights. The work of the BBC’s Peter appeal and local appeals in Wales, Northern international charity reaches 250m people across Ireland and the English regions. Appeals on behalf the world through local broadcast partners, BBC of the Disasters Emergency Committee appeals are channels, online, mobile and print. occasionally carried. BBC Performing Arts Fund Volunteering BBC Performing Arts Fund seeks out and supports BBC volunteers have used their aspiring individuals and community groups who might creative skills to work with local otherwise not be able to reach their potential. Funded partners in schemes ranging from from the revenues of voting lines on BBC shows like student mentoring and charity film- The Voice, it awarded more than £450,000 in 2011/12. making to social media training. *The BBC Wildlife Fund is currently being wound down. - 2 - BBC Support for Charities Broadcasting charity appeals and informing audiences about the work of In August 2011 we made the decision that, in order to concentrate our the voluntary sector goes to the heart of the BBC’s public service remit. charitable efforts where they could make the biggest difference, we We know charities are important to the UK public. Judging by a massive would withdraw on-air support for the BBC Wildlife Fund. It was not an year-on-year increase of more than £10m to the appeal total for easy choice to make and that charity will now close. BBC Children in Need (£47m) and a staggering £18m more for Sport Relief (£62.5m), audiences are engaged enough in the work of those organisations to give more generously than ever, despite the economic Stephen Dunmore is in the final year of his five year term as squeeze. Both appeals have achieved all-time records in 2011/12. chairman of the BBC Charity Appeals Advisory Committee. Here he gives his assessment of the impact the BBC is having Our three corporate charities and our support through partnership on the charitable sector to BBC world affairs correspondent with independent fund-raising bodies like Comic Relief have close Mike Wooldridge, who has a longstanding interest in charities links with both our business as an international broadcaster and the and is a trustee of St Martins-in-the-Field. public purposes that guide everything we do. That might be promoting creativity and diversity through BBC Performing Arts Fund bursaries; The BBC Executive Board oversees all BBC charity appeals, with educating audiences about marginalised communities through BBC advice from a group of independent experts, the BBC Charity Appeals Children in Need output; supporting citizenship and learning through Advisory Committee (AAC). A recent review by the AAC looked imaginative international projects by BBC Media Action; or bringing the across our charitable activity, including the weekly Radio 4 appeals, stark reality of the developing world to the UK through Sport Relief. monthly BBC One Lifeline appeals, broadcast appeals in the nations We aim to produce creative content across all our services and platforms and English regions and occasional crisis appeals made on behalf of to engage the widest possible audience in the work of thousands of the Disasters Emergency Committee. Recommendations that we are national, international and local charities and encourage giving. Our now acting upon include establishing four-year, rolling partnership audiences helped raise more that £100m in the last year. Outside of agreements with BBC Children in Need, Comic Relief and St Martins-in- the major TV telethon appeals, recent output that clearly resonated the-Field to allow more strategic planning for those appeals. with audiences has included John Bishop’s Week of Hell for Sport Relief, In this latest update from BBC Outreach, we report on how BBC which alone raised almost £2m for the biennial appeal and the brief but broadcasting has been supporting the work of charities large and small effective airtime given to the Radio 4 Christmas appeal which this year and on the way BBC staff volunteering is benefiting charities and our generated a record £1.8m (up from £1.5m) for St Martins-in-the-Field. own business. - 3 - On appeal night we mounted 15 outside broadcasts at venues across the BBC Children in Need UK, attended by local fundraisers and some of the children who have benefited from grants. We know that thousands of events took place around the country in response to the charity’s call to fundraising action around the creative theme of ‘show your spots, let’s raise lots’. More than £2.6m was donated by text or via the BBC website during and after the televised BBC Children in Need Rocks Manchester concert at the city’s MEN Arena. Stories from grants the charity has funded were included in the BBC One broadcast. Elsewhere, a combination of old fashioned pedal power and growth in social media raised both funds and the charity’s profile. A 500-mile rickshaw ride by The One Show’s Matt Baker alone brought in £1.7m. While on Facebook, Pudsey’s fan base increased to 740,000 BBC Children in Need is probably the charity that most people associate from 400,000 at the same time in 2010. The site was used widely by with the corporation. Its vision is that every child in the UK should have a supporters to tell the charity and each other about fundraising events. safe, happy and secure childhood and the chance to reach their potential. We work closely with our charity to maximise its impact through What the money does broadcasting. The annual TV telethon plus hundreds of hours of coverage across our services promote and showcase fundraising and help bring communities, regions and the nation together. Poverty 31%31% Output aims to inform and inspire audiences by telling the stories of the Disability 21%21% challenges children face and how the work of grant-funded organisations Marginalised groups groups 15%15% makes a difference. Distress 12%12% Poverty Behavioural31% difficulties difficulties 8%8% In November 2011, the main appeal show achieved a record on-the- Disability 21% MarginalisedAbuse/neglect groups 15% 6% night total of £26,332,334, £8m more than in 2010. That has now risen Distress Abuse/neglect12% 6% Behavioural difficulties 8% Abuse/neglectIllnessIllness 6% 6% to £47m, which will allow the charity to distribute its highest ever annual Illness 6% level of grants - £46m across the UK – by October 2012. Last year’s *The 2011 appeal closed at the end of June 2012 and grants have not yet been awarded in full. grant distribution total was £40m. This chart is based on live grants at the end of May 2012. - 4 - In 2012, approximately 91 hours of network TV programming had Sport Chloe, Buttle UK Relief content in the 12 weeks running up to the appeal weekend in BUTTLE UK delivers an emergency welfare March (70 hours in 2010) - from Let’s Dance for Sport Relief to coverage grants programme with a BBC Children of gruelling celebrity challenges and factual output informing audiences in Need grant of £2m. It provides items about the work done by grant-funded organisations. like cookers, fridges, beds and bedding to children in extreme need across the UK. We ran a marketing campaign and trails for the Sport Relief Mile - this Chloe, 11, slept on cold, bare floorboards because her mattress was full of bed year run by more than 1m volunteers, a 40% increase on 2010. Output bugs which gave her sore, itchy bites. Her mum couldn’t afford to replace the across all our services in the nations and regions included more than mattress which meant she was constantly tired and falling asleep at school. She 200 TV features and almost 2,000 spots on BBC local radio. was also embarrassed to show the bites on her skin. Using BBC Children in Need funding, Buttle gave Chloe and her sisters a new bed so she no longer falls And for the first time ever, the BBC’s international TV audiences were asleep in school and doesn’t have to cover up, for fear of being bullied.

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