How do you make the most of Christmas giving? [AFTER A CHRISTMAS in lockdown last year, this year will see
an altogether more festive affair – and it is also hoped that charities’ fundraising activities will return to something approaching normal. Helping charities to make the most of festive giving is the aim of a new report from Enthuse, the charity fundraising platform. The report – Christmas Giving Insights – has the subheading ‘Making Christmas even more appealing’ and analyses how donor behaviour changes during the period from November to January. Based on actual data collated from Enthuse’s platform, it aims to answer such questions as: • How important is Giving Tuesday? • Is there a ‘golden hour’ for donations? • Which weeks should charities focus their activity on? Enthuse has worked with 4,000 charities to transform their digital fundraising and the report calls on that experience to help charities to make the most of what is probably the most important time of the year. In its Introduction, the report’s authors state: “Judging when to release campaigns and what times of the day are most appealing to the public is challenging at the best of times. The impact of the pandemic has made this even harder as the public’s giving habits have been shifting as lockdowns, working from home and then the easing of restrictions have all changed the ways people behave.” The researchers analysed data from the last two Christmases – 2019 and 2020 – focusing on the period from November to January, to assess how giving changed during the pandemic. The first conclusion reached
was that charities should concentrate their efforts on the month of December: November and January are seen to follow the same pattern as the rest of the year. For December the picture changes dramatically, with peaks and troughs of giving varying widely across the month coupled with a smaller variation overall in 2020. The most striking difference was on Christmas Eve, which accounted for 4.6% of December donations last Christmas compared to 7% in 2019. According to the report’s authors: “This may be because more people were working from home throughout December and there were still numerous restrictions in place limiting the number of leisure activities people could take part in. With some having more disposable income to donate, the public may have tended towards giving earlier. As we return to more normal circumstances around this festive period, it’s possible that habits may fall back to more like 2019.” Christmas Giving Insights can be downloaded from the Enthuse website at enthuse.com/insights/ q
Until clefts are preventable, help is available worldwide [TODAY, ONE IN 700 BABIES in
the UK are born with a cleft lip and palate, the most common form of birth defect. The impact on a child’s life as they grow is profound. It may affect not only the way they look, but also their speech, hearing and dental development. And it can leave deep psychological scars. In the developing world, patients with clefts are frequently not operated on until later in life, if at all. As a result, they may be malnourished and unable to talk well or hear properly. Often, they will be social outcasts. At CLEFT, our vision is of a future where clefts are preventable. Until we get there, we want to improve the lives of those born with cleft lip and palate – in the UK and in poorer countries around the world.
Join the research effort
By funding research, we continue to make headway into understanding why clefts occur and to deliver pioneering new treatments that deliver kinder, more effective and more efficient care for children with cleft lip and palate. By supporting the development of cleft centres in low and middleincome countries we aim to give children born with clefts in these poorer countries the same opportunities available to children in the UK. Each donation takes us a step closer to reaching our goal. All gifts could have a direct impact on changing the lives of many hundreds of thousands of babies and children around the world. Please join us and help us prevent clefts for future generations. q
29 29
