The Big Give

The Big Give Christmas Challenge http://www.thebiggive.org.uk is an annual charity fundraising campaign using matched funding. It’s particularly suitable for raising money for a specific project and it’s mostly used by smaller charities. Members of the public can donate in early December and have their funds matched by a panel of businesses and grantmaking trusts (the “charity champions”) and by the charity’s own trustees and marketing#major donors.

The typical source of Christmas Challenge donations is therefore:

25% from your charity’s own major donors and trustees
25% from the charity champions
50% from members of the public

In 2012 the Christmas Challenge raised an average of £28500 for the 350 charities involved, and the figures for 2013 and 2014 were similar.

In the 2014 Christmas Challenge, Whisper raised around £11250 for its work against jiggers https://secure.thebiggive.org.uk/projects/view/21372.

In the 2015 Christmas Challenge, Whisper raised £7500 for a new children’s home https://secure.thebiggive.org.uk/projects/view/23024, with additional matching outside The Big Give taking the total to £15000.

In practice it has taken a lot of work to chase up payment from a small minority of pledgers. If pledgers don’t pay up, this puts the corporate matching funds at risk, so we don’t currently use The Big Give, although we might do again in future.

How it works in detail

The Big Give provides a guidebook each year, but broadly the timetable is:

1) May-June	Charities apply for the Christmas Challenge
2) September	The charities appeal for their trustees and major donors to make pledges between £100 and £5000 each to match donations in the December campaign
3) early December	Members of the public donate, releasing matched funding from businesses and from the major donors from stage 2. This is the most difficult stage because the matching funds from businesses and trusts are limited and run out, sometimes within minutes. Major donors from stage 2 are barred from donating at this stage, but other major donors can donate up to £5000 each. The only practical way to ensure that donations are made in time to receive matched funding is to arrange well in advance for a small number of major donors to donate up to £5000 each at the appointed time in December

1) May-June

Charities apply for the Christmas Challenge

2) September

The charities appeal for their trustees and major donors to make pledges between £100 and £5000 each to match donations in the December campaign

3) early December

Members of the public donate, releasing matched funding from businesses and from the major donors from stage 2. This is the most difficult stage because the matching funds from businesses and trusts are limited and run out, sometimes within minutes. Major donors from stage 2 are barred from donating at this stage, but other major donors can donate up to £5000 each. The only practical way to ensure that donations are made in time to receive matched funding is to arrange well in advance for a small number of major donors to donate up to £5000 each at the appointed time in December

The Big Give occasionally runs other fundraising events throughout the year and in principle these can benefit any charity which registers with them.