CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE 2016 Discover. Donate. Double.

Tuesday 29th November - Friday 1st December "It cannot be overstated the amazing job that the Big Give does in providing that spark for a stunning few days of over Christmas.

Our supporters relish the challenge of helping us hit our fundraising target, all the time knowing that they are doubling the impact of the work that can be done to help some of the most troubled families in our local communities."

-- West London Action for Children

"We really feel that to make a new potential donor sit up and listen to your cause you need to incentivise them for their support and having a 'double your ' opportunity is exactly what worked."

- Amantani Educational Boarding Houses

"Our favourite part of the Challenge is seeing the results on the ground in Rwanda.

The Big Give is enabling us to restore sight to many more people who want to study, work productively and look after their families.

Seeing the smile on the face of someone able to see clearly for the first time is incredibly rewarding."

- Vision for a Nation THE CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE

The UK's biggest online match-funding campaign The Christmas Challenge is the UK’s biggest online match- funding campaign which helps UK-registered charities raise funds for their cause.

Doubling since 2008 Since the Big Give launched the campaign in 2008, the Christmas Challenge has raised over £71 million for 2,529 projects with local, national and international aims.

The Christmas Challenge was born

The idea for the campaign came from founder of the Big Give, Sir Alec Reed CBE, who was keen to incentivise more people to give to charity online. In December 2008, The Reed Foundation put up £1 million to double online donations made via the Big Give within a specific time frame.

This 'matching fund' was exhausted in 45 minutes, raising a total of £2 million for UK-registered charities. Sir Alec Reed CBE, founder of Reed Recruitment The success of this initiative demonstrated the need for innovation in online fundraising and the power of match funding as an effective philanthropic tool. Multi-award winning initiative

The campaign has engaged some of the biggest funders in the UK and has become a well-known brand within the UK charity & calendar.

It is a multi-award winning initiative, attracting huge levels of web traffic and donations, and receiving tweets from major celebrities. In 2015, over 10,000 donations were made during the campaign.

Some previous high profile supporters Sting and Stephen Fry are amongst those to have backed the campaign. theBigGive.org.uk

In addition to running match-funding campaigns, the Big Give is an award- winning donation platform that enables individuals to give to the causes they care about most all year round.

The platform was originally launched as a 'one-stop shop' for charities to showcase their work, bringing charities and philanthropists together to change more lives by inspiring more people to give online.

T​ he Big Give supports charities by providing a portal for them to receive online donations and increase their online visibility. All UK-registered charities are eligible to sign up on the Big Give for free and make the most of the services we offer.

MATCH-FUNDING ONLINE DONATIONS

BIG ADVICE TRUSTEE FINDER

“A marvellous idea, and a very lively and appealing website" – Sir Sigmund Sternberg British philanthropist and entrepreneur CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE 2016

KEY TIMES AND DATES

The Christmas Challenge 2016 launches on #GivingTuesday 29th November at 12pm (midday)

It runs for 72 hours until 12pm (midday) on Friday 2nd December

#GivingTuesday is a global day of giving to encourage the public to give to charity and takes place after Black Friday.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE CAMPAIGN LAUNCHES?

When the Christmas Challenge goes live, donations made by the public are doubled to the participating charity projects.

Each charity has a matching pot used to double donations. Their matching pots contain funds from Pledgers (the charity's own major donors) and may also contain funds from a Champion (external funder sourced by the Big Give). Read on to see how the matching model works in more detail.

Charities can be offered Champion funds (the maximum available is equal to the Pledges secured) but these are not guaranteed. HOW DOES THE MATCHING WORK?

Please note that this is an example campaign. In this example, the charity has been selected for Champion funding so their matching pot is made up of funds from two sources.

Who are the Pledgers? Pledgers are key supporters of participating charities. They contribute to the by providing promises of funding. Pledgers can be major donors, trustees, or any other significant supporter of the charity.

Who are the Champions? Champions are partners of the Big Give. These are external funders who contribute to the matching funds and can be Trusts, Foundations, Corporations or philanthropists. MATCH FUNDING: WHY DO WE USE THIS MODEL?

Research into making your donations go further

In 2016, the Big Give commissioned a piece of research with Charities Trust and RBS to explore how match-funding is used in the UK today.

The project was carried out by Dr Cat Walker, founder of the independent research consultant, The Researchery. The research assesses the effectiveness of match-funding as an incentive to give and explores its impact on the donors, charities, companies and philanthropists that use it to maximise charitable donations.

More people give when their Some donors give more when donations are match-funded their donations are match-funded

84% of survey respondents felt that The average matched gift made they were more likely to give because through the Big Give is £333 while of the matching offered the average unmatched gift is £132 MATCH FUNDING: WHY DO WE USE THIS MODEL?

Match-funding is currently the MOST likely factor to make donors give more

"I think it chimes very much with the feeling people have at the moment of wanting their charitable donations to go as far as possible and to do as much good as possible."

Dr Beth Breeze, Director Centre for Philanthropy, University of Kent

"It is clear that the leverage generated by the idea of matched funding is very attractive to donors at all levels. It acts both as an incentive and a stopwatch; it gives the donor a significant sense of value for money."

Higher Education Funding Council for England, 2012

"I think matching appeals to people because someone has put in their money and by putting in yours it's a sense of solidarity, you know, let's all club together and do this."

Dr Beth Breeze, Director Centre for Philanthropy, University of Kent MORE QUESTIONS? Get in touch

[email protected]

@BigGive The Big Give ChristmasChallenge16