Big Give Christmas Challenge Raises Over £5,000 for Alex’s Wish
The Big Give is the UK’s number one match funding platform and specialise in bringing charities, philanthropists and the public together to multiply their impact. They run the Big Give Christmas Challenge annually, raising millions of pounds for good causes, with local charity Alex’s Wish being one such recipient.
Founder of Alex’s Wish, Emma Hallam, commented on the Challenge saying, “The Big Give Christmas Challenge runs for seven days in December and offered our supporters the opportunity to have their donations doubled. For example, an online donation of £100 is doubled to £200 and if Gift Aid is claimed the donation could be worth £225. Donations are match funded via a ‘matching pot’ which is made up of two parts – funding that each charity secures in the run up to the campaign and secondly from external ‘Champions’ who are sourced by the Big Give.
“Our first challenge was to find our pledgers to fund the ‘matching pot’. Pledgers are key supporters of the charity who pledge a minimum of £100. We set ourselves a target of £5,000 with £1,250 coming from our pledgers, £1,250 coming from our ‘Champion’ to create the funding pot ready to open the Big Give Christmas Challenge on Giving Tuesday. During the campaign week our amazing supporters donated £2,600 ensuring we hit the £5,000 target. With gift aid this raised £5,625 in total.”
Supporters who pledged their support for Alex’s Wish Big Give Christmas Challenge included:
o Kamlesh Samji, KRS Will Planning
o Ed Cooper, Ed Coper – ACTION Coach
o Glynis Wright, Glynis Wright & Co now part of Nelsons
o Marian Powdrill, Downtown Computers
o Jeanette Webb, Jay Webb Consultancy
o Ben Knowles, Ben’s Kitchen
o Gavin Dilkes, Synergy Personnel Services
o Raj Khuti, QT Property Investments
o Sam Goddard, St James Systems
o Josh Rai, Selfless Productions
o Joanna Streames, Velvet Mortgages
o Jon Allen, Future Marketing
o Adrian Pawsey, Harlequin Printer Supplies
Zoe Edwards, Fundraising & Events Manager at Alex’s Wish added, “We received a £1,250 donation from our ‘Champion’ The Hospital Saturday Fund, a registered charity who support medically-associated charities and individuals with grants. Together our pledgers and ‘Champion’ raised £5,625 for Alex’s Wish which is just phenomenal and ended a challenging year extremely positively. I’d like to thank all our pledgers and our ‘Champion’ for their support. We quite literally couldn’t have done it without you.”
The £5,625 will be invested into medical research, clinical trials and ensuring clinical trial capacity as Alex’s Wish continue their campaign to find treatments and, ultimately, a cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy; a life-limiting muscle wasting condition which affects 1 in every 3,500 boys born.
For more information on Alex’s Wish please visit www.alexswish.co.uk. The Hospital Saturday Fund can be found here: https://www.hsf.co.uk/about-us/our-charity
