Thank you so much to everyone who donated to our Big Give Christmas Challenge!
We doubled the maximum possible number of donations, getting £9,500 doubled to £19,000. And with Gift Aid and other donations on top, we’ve raised a grand total of £22,128! This will make a massive difference to our campaigning over the next year.
I hope you’ll be part of that campaigning too – make sure you’re on our email list and do join us on Facebook and Twitter as well.
Day 3 update:
A Big Thank You to everyone who donated on Day 3 of The Big Give – we’ve reached our full £20,000 target and with Gift Aid on top we’ll have exceeded it!
To those who haven’t donated yet, you can still get a donation to the debt campaign doubled by donating to our friends at Jubilee Scotland here >>
Day 2 update: Target nearly reached!
Thank you so much to everyone who tried to get a donation doubled on Day 2. The good news is we’ve reached £9,566, which has been doubled to £19,132!
However, our sincere apologies to everyone who tried in vain to get a donation doubled this morning. This was owing to two factors beyond our control: firstly, some donations made yesterday were incorrectly not doubled in the Big Give’s system. This was updated overnight, but only communciated to us after the Challenge had opened this morning.
Secondly, because the Big Give has raised less matched funding than expected, the maximum amount we could get doubled was reduced to £9,500. This means that our page on the Big Give website should have stated that we had completed the challenge, and only unmatched donations could be made from this morning. Instead, for a long period after 10am it was incorrectly advising people to ‘check back in a few minutes’, and then incorrectly stating that the challenge was ‘paused’. We spent all morning trying to get the Big Give to correct this information on their website, and they finally did so at 1.30pm. I do understand how frustrating this must have been to anyone trying in this period and I can assure you we are communicating this to the Big Give.
Of course, overall, we are very pleased to have reached 95% of our fundraising target of £20,000. If you didn’t manage to get a donation doubled, we would still massively appreciate any contribution you can make to help get us to that target.
Click here to make a donation now >>
Day 1 update: A brilliant start!
Thank you so much to everyone who donated on Day 1 of the Challenge. Matched funds lasted off-and-on for about an hour, and we raised an amazing £8,236! This has been doubled to £16,472 – a remarkable 82% of the way to our £20,000 target already.
One detail for those of you hoping to donate tomorrow or Saturday: in our initial Q&A, we said to keep trying if the Challenge showed as ‘paused’. In fact, when the Challenge is ‘paused’ it means the matched funds have been used up for the day, and it will reopen at 10am the next day. Before this, when there are still unprocessed donations in the system which may become available again, the Big Give website states that all matched funds have been ‘reserved’. It’s then that it’s worth clicking refresh every couple of minutes to see if matched funds become available again. We’ve updated the Q&A below to reflect this.
About The Big Give
WHAT ARE WE FUNDRAISING FOR?
We’re raising funds for our campaign to avert a new debt crisis in the global South. A new boom in lending to the developing world is underway, with countries like Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia on track for a new debt crisis if nothing is done to address it. This is exactly what we’ve warned could happen, but there’s still time to make a difference. The campaign is focusing on highlighting the scale of the threat, and our manifesto to avert it, in the run-up to the General Election next May.
HOW DO I DONATE?
The Big Give starts at 10am on Thursday 4, Friday 5 and Saturday 6 December. You can donate by going to the Jubilee Debt Campaign page on The Big Give website. As there are limited funds available each day, there is more chance of successfully doubling your donation if you donate as close as possible to 10am on any of the days.
HOW LONG DID MATCHED FUNDS LAST LAST YEAR?
Last year the matched funding lasted for 9 minutes on Thursday, a couple of hours on Friday, and the same on Saturday. As the funds made available by the Big Give are shared among all the charities in our category in the challenge, the earlier in the week you donate, the more chance we have of reaching our full £20,000 target.
WHAT SHOULD I DO IF IT SAYS ALL MATCHED FUNDS HAVE BEEN ‘RESERVED’?
When all the matched funds available on that day have been allocated to online donations that are being processed, the Big Give website will show that all matched funds have been ‘reserved’ and will suggest you ‘check back in a few minutes’. This means that matched funds may still become available if not all the transactions are completed. If you click ‘Refresh’ in your web browser, it will check whether funds have become available – so persistence may well be rewarded!
WHAT SHOULD I DO IF IT SAYS THE CHALLENGE IS ‘PAUSED’?
Once all the matched funding for the day is used up, the Big Give website will state that the Challenge is paused for the day. That means that you need to wait until 10am the next day for another chance to get your donation doubled. [UPDATE Friday 5th: Although the Big Give website is currently stating our challenge is paused, we have in fact had our maximum possible amount of donations doubled. As a result, you can now only make unmatched donations].
HOW WILL MY DONATION BE DOUBLED?
Donations will be doubled from a combination of matched funding raised by The Big Give and pledges already made by other Jubilee Debt Campaign supporters.
WHAT DO I NEED IN ORDER TO DONATE ONLINE?
You will need a debit or credit card and a working internet connection. If you haven’t donated online before, the Big Give has a simple guide to making online donations for the first time.
ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?
If you have any other questions, just reply to this email or phone the Jubilee Debt Campaign office on 020 7324 4722.