One Week. Double Donations. Here’s What Happened.
On Tuesday, December 2nd, the Big Give Christmas Challenge began. For one week, any donations we received via the Big Give would be doubled until we hit our target: £87,500.
So, we announced it online. And we were confident. We know how generous and determined the Rett community can be.
But we also know times are hard. And beyond that, we know that sometimes people feel embarrassed or even ashamed to donate £1 or £2. We’ve had conversations with donors before who apologised for not donating more. But it’s those seemingly small individual donations that stack up and raise huge amounts of money added together.
And we wanted to encourage that. So halfway through the week, we started to point out to people how quicky £1 could become £2 (actually £2.25 with Gift Aid, which allows UK taxpayers to reclaim tax on donations and add it to the donation).
The donations poured in fast. But with 24 hours to go, we were still £10K from our target, meaning we could’ve missed out on almost £5,000 of free funding.
But, thanks to your generosity, we pulled it off at the last minute, hitting our target with just an hour to spare.
In total we raised £87,682, plus over £9000 of Gift Aid, for a total of £96,697.75
That is an absolutely incredible amount of money, made up of 341 donations, hundreds more persuasive conversations, and thousands of likes and reshares to spread our cause. It also means that our supporters have helped us reach our target for the 16th year in a row.
None of it would be possible without your support. However ‘small,’ it may seem to you, it makes an unimaginable difference.
From the bottom of all our hearts, thank you to everyone who donated, shared, and in any other way supported us. We couldn’t have raised this money without your support.
Thank you.