Stunning success on Greenham Trust double-matched day

Trust‘s 24 hour top-up fundraising initiative boosts 10 local projects

A STAGGERING £181,000 was raised in 24 hours through Greenham Trust’s first Double Matched Day.

On Friday’s special fundraising day, 10 charities had the opportunity to treble each pound they raised.

This meant that for every £1 donated, Greenham Trust double matched it with £2 – up to a maximum of £10,000 of matched funding.

The charitable organisations fundraised for causes ranging from supporting mothers through postnatal care, a cuddle bed for terminally-ill cancer patients to helping children through bereavement and debt, housing and jobs advice for people affected by Covid-19.

Eight of the 10 finalists raised more than their £5,000 public donations target and each received a £10,000 boost from Greenham Trust.

But they kept going, with The Watermill theatre raising an extraordinary £42,642, Newbury Cancer Care £27,747 and Berkshire MS Therapy £20,643 for their Double Matched Day projects.

In total, there were 1,359 donations in the 24-hour period – £84,070 was donated by the public, £87,534 of matched funding and £10,321 of gift aid, reaching a whopping total of £181,926.

East Ilsley Parish Council clerk Fenella Woods raised more than £5,000 by running 24.7km, with the money going towards revamping their village playground.

Ms Woods said: “The event was nothing short of fantastic.

“I’d like to thank you for all your support, guidance and mentoring which was instrumental in us creating such a great campaign.

“All the councillors are extremely overwhelmed by the response from the villagers and we could not have done it without the support from you, or the use of the platform to do it safely and securely.

“It was a fantastic initiative, really helped to drive community engagement and people are still discussing it on social media today.”

Berkshire MS Therapy Centre fundraising manager Samantha Harper said: “What an amazing day we have had.

“I’m not sure we have ever raised £5,000 before 9am before.

“Every time we tried to announce how much we had raised, it had jumped again.

“It has been a very difficult four months without funding from the NHS or larger MS charities – if we can’t raise the funds we need we can’t run our services.

“The local community has always been so supportive when we have needed their help.

“We would like to say a huge thank you to the Greenham Trust, The Good Exchange and everyone who has donated.

“The gift you have given the MS community is completely priceless.”

Home-Start West Berkshire managed to raise more than £15,000 to support new mothers with post-natal depression, and manager Grace Green said: “Thank you so much for creating this fantastic fundraiser.

“We were astounded to reach our target by breakfast and the money just kept rolling in all day.

“Funding for a medium-sized charity like ours is always a never-ending challenge but this event has meant we have our funding for our Maternal Mental Health Project for the year in one day.

“It means so much to Home-Start West Berkshire and will have a huge impact on all the mums and children we support.”

Greenham Trust chief executive Chris Boulton said: “Double Matched Day was a first for us and we all hoped it would be a success, but not in our wildest dreams did we expect it would prove to be so successful in engaging our community in giving to local charities, many of them reaching their fundraising targets.

“We’ll let the dust settle, but it could well become an annual event from now on.”

Head of collaborative funding at Greenham Trust and The Good Exchange Julian May said: “The Good Exchange broke all kinds of records on Friday thanks to the generosity of the local community and Greenham Trust’s matched funding via the platform.

“The whole community got behind the event and the 10 finalists were just brilliant, thinking up innovative fundraising initiatives.

“We are looking forward to the next one.”

Off the back of the success of the day, Greenham Trust is looking for funding partners for future Matched Day events.

If you are interested in working alongside Greenham Trust to support the local community, contact julian.may@thegoodexchange.com