Thanks to DCMS’ Tampon Tax funding, the Big Give can support charities working to improve the lives of vulnerable, disadvantaged or underrepresented women and girls in England and Scotland throughout 2022.

We kicked off this funding with our inaugural Women & Girls Match Fund, which raised £2m for 119 women & girls charities between 8 – 22 March.

2022 funding opportunities

We’re excited to announce that over £1m of match funding is available to support Women and Girls charities, and we have two other opportunities for charities to access this funding over the course of 2022:

• The Christmas Challenge 2022: The UK’s biggest match funding campaign takes place from 29th November – to 6th December. Applications open from 16th May – to 1st July. Up to £25,000 in match funding is available per charity.
• Run your own match funding campaign: Run your own match funding campaign on the Big Give platform at a time that suits you. Applications open from 1st April – to 28th October. Up to £10,000 in match funding is available per charity.

To find out more about eligibility for these campaigns, please go to our Women and Girls Match Fund page.

Charity survey results from the 2022 Women and Girls Match Fund

• 87% of charities reported that the campaign helped their organisation develop its relationship with existing donors.
• 90% of charities reported that the campaign helped their organisation develop its relationship with new donors.
• 90% said they would be interested in taking part in another Big Give campaign
• 96% of charities received donations from new supporters who had not previously donated to their charity before.
• 65% said that compared to other non-matched fundraising they’d done, the match funding element for this campaign increased the number of donations they received
• 94% of charities reported that this campaign increased their organisation’s confidence in digital fundraising.
• 63% of the charities that participated in this campaign had not taken part in any Big Give campaigns before.
• 76% of charities reported they achieved and surpassed their aims for the campaign.

Alex Day, Director of the Big Give said:

“We are delighted to have been awarded the Tampon Tax funding to launch the Women & Girls Match Fund campaign in 2022. Through the project, we have aimed to support the women & girls sector in England and Scotland through match funding campaigns, whilst increasing the resilience, skills, and profile of these charities. 

Our experience tells us that more people give, and people give more when their donations are matched. We are excited to give hundreds of charities working with women & girls the opportunity to benefit from this extraordinary fundraising approach.“

Feedback from charities:

“We achieved a number of our aims by participating in the Women and Girls Matched Fund. Our primary aim was to gain support for a user-led group, raise awareness and specifically to create a step-change in the understanding of the organisation about what it takes to run an online fundraising campaign. The latter was achieved in that it created challenging conversations during the challenge period. By participating, the Charity is more aware about what is required and the importance of being active in this space and the very real benefits of this. We were able to reach out to new groups and supporters. While our financial success is modest, it was the first time that the Charity had achieved online income, in this way, from a project that is Charity led. The wider team understood better the mechanics of an organisational online fundraising campaign. TBG challenge allowed us to improve our understanding of the language that engages the community when we talk about sexual violence. There have also been new relationships and actions from local supporters; this includes other local funders identifying potential sources of funding or support for this project and our wider work and new supporters willing to engage in additional ways to support our work.”

“An additional £17k of income including Gift Aid, which is a significant amount to a small charity. It has prompted us to register to claim Gift Aid in our own right. Opportunities to participate in training workshops, use professional-looking resources, and develop our understanding and skills in online fundraising.”

“We secured new donors, some of whom were new to our organisation. Match funding motivated many of our current supporters to donate. We have secured significant funding for our projects. It has helped to raise our profile.”

“As a new charity, this funding is transformational. Funding to date has largely been focused on governance. Raising £50,000 in two weeks means the charity can fast track its work to develop tools to recruit and immobilise volunteers.”