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MNHQ

Mumsnet Christmas Appeal - let's support three brilliant charities!

16 replies

JustineMumsnet · 20/12/2018 07:37

Greetings all,

We’re pleased to announce the launch of this year’s Christmas fundraiser - this year we’re raising money for the Against Malaria Foundation, Trussell Trust and the Women Support Women group at the Prince’s Trust.

As with our previous Christmas appeals, we’ll match donations up to a total of £10,000 across the three charities.

We know this is an expensive time of year, but any donation at all will be greatly appreciated and WILL make a difference.

Please have a look here for more information about the three charities. We’ll keep you updated with running totals and post updates here.

Please click on the links below to

Donate to the Against Malaria Foundation

Donate to the Trussell Trust

Donate to Women Support Women at the Prince’s Trust

Thank you for reading and for supporting our appeals - we hope you’ll be as inspired by these causes as we are.

Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas,

Justine and all of us at MNHQ Xmas Smile

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MNHQ

AnnaCMumsnet · 22/12/2018 22:26

Thanks for the comments so far.

May I suggest it runs until at least Jan 31st so that people have had another pay day/received Christmas present money and generally to give it a good chance of getting to £10k.

@1234hello This is a great idea. We were later than planned launching the appeal so we will keep it open until 31st January.

MNHQ

AnnaCMumsnet · 22/12/2018 22:38

@spongebobjudgeypants I'm just checking for you how the women supporting women initiative works. I'll get back to you when I've heard back (probably Christmas Eve now).

In answer to the question about matching donations, in the past we have always matched the money each charity raises.

Hope this helps for now and let us know any other questions you have (we'll answer them as quickly as we can between mince pies and last minute wrapping).

MNHQ

BojanaMumsnet · 24/12/2018 11:06

@SpongeBobJudgeyPants

Justine when I click the link to Prince's trust giving page, there is no mention of the women part, just generic Prince's Trust, so no indication that it's going to that project.

Hi,

The Prince's Trust has said they will code the income that comes in through this JustGiving page, so that any money raised will be specifically ringfenced for supporting women in the Prince’s Trust’s programmes.

Sorry for the confusion - hope that's clear now.

MNHQ

BojanaMumsnet · 24/12/2018 11:07

[quote anonymousquestions]@AnnaCMumsnet

Thanks for the posts, I think we know that in the past you have match donations. The question was whether you would donate the £10k anyway as a gesture of goodwill? It’s presumably been accrued/budgeted for already?[/quote]

Hi,

We'll find out and let you know!

MNHQ

BojanaMumsnet · 03/01/2019 10:59

Hello

Firstly, we really want to give away the full £10k but we also think that it's important we stick to the fund-matching principle to encourage the maximum donation to the benefit of these really worthy charities.

We are going to be doing lots of promotion over the next few weeks (we're keeping the appeal open until the end of January, so hopefully through another pay day for lots of people) and we will ask the charities themselves to draw their supporters' attention to it too - we'll do everything we can to get the total donation up to £20k.

Hands up - we didn't consult with MNers when we were choosing the charities. In previous years there have been one or two stand-out causes and the appeals for those went off without controversy. This year there weren't any obvious candidates so we thought we'd choose a few that we'd had dealings with over the last 12 months. That was a mistake and next year we'll make sure we consult with you, as well as launching the appeal earlier.

@sunshineNdaisies and @bananasandwicheseveryday we were very happy to organise the Mumsnet Secret Santa and we're glad you valued it too. In consultation with users we took the decision to stop running the Secret Santa in 2016 and to match-fund donations to charities at Christmas time instead because over the last couple of years of the Secret Santa we were getting lots and lots of discussions that seemed to show it was causing arguments and frustration among MNers, which obviously isn't what anyone needs (especially over Christmas).

Hope this answers your questions about the appeal, but let us know if not and we'll answer more speedily, as we're (almost) all back in the office now.

Thanks

MNHQ

BojanaMumsnet · 03/01/2019 11:01

Hi @Dogsmellssobadbob

Yes, we'll post here to let you know what the totals are at the end of the appeal.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 07/01/2019 09:28

@BIWI

Sad that you're not addressing my post, MNHQ.

Well I think we did respond tbh Biwi, viz, "Hands up - we didn't consult with MNers when we were choosing the charities. In previous years there have been one or two stand-out causes and the appeals for those went off without controversy. This year there weren't any obvious candidates so we thought we'd choose a few that we'd had dealings with over the last 12 months. That was a mistake and next year we'll make sure we consult with you, as well as launching the appeal earlier."

I honestly don't think this particular cock-up is a sign of any fundamental change Biwi; I can tell you that here at MNHQ the team talk about putting users interests' first a lot (in fact it's one of our 5 core values that I talk about in every quarterly team presentation). We've built a business around listening to Mumsnetters and trying to always stick to our principles and it's fundamental. We often still ask users for their thoughts on advertisers/ business decisions - Babylon and etoro spring to mind in the last two months, not to mention our commitment to the FWR board - and modify those decisions according to user feedback.

You might be interested to see our www.slideshare.net/Mumsnet/mumsnet-our-culture-107447221 Culture deck which we link to in every recruitment ad, and which I present to all new joiners at MNHQ.

Clearly we could have run this appeal, which is an attempt to do something unequivocally good, a bit better and we'll do it better next time. But I wouldn't read too much into an honest mistake as a result of being a bit rushed.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 07/01/2019 15:40

[quote theoryBuilding]@JustMabel - if you're getting something for free then you're the product. Nothing wrong with that and it shouldn't be a surprise.

@Justine

"in fact it's one of our 5 core values that I talk about in every quarterly team presentation"

Talk's cheap - like your £723 donation to charity.[/quote]

Not been cheap at all to stick to our principles to be honest. We've turned away/ lost around £1m this year at a conservative estimate. And we're hoping the donation to charity will be nearer 10k.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 07/01/2019 16:10

@JustMabel

Thanks for replying, Justine but ... why the Prince's Trust with an income of over £70 million? Why not a couple of smaller charities that would be cock-a-hoop over donations of up to £20,000. MNetters could happily supply you with a list.

And, sorry, but I found some of the content of your response a bit depressing. I've been here long enough to remember when it were all fields round here your friendly posts where it wasn't shoved in our faces that we were the product around which a business has built.

The reason we picked the Princes' Trust was specifically for the Women Supporting Women bit which I gather is an entirely separate fund and which resonated but I take your point that Princes Trust is a well-funded parent org.

I'm not sure quite what you mean about me shoving it in your face tbh and I certainly wasn't meaning to be unfriendly. But we genuinely do try not to put profits before doing the right thing (we don't and never have sold individual user data or interfered with genuine user opinion, unlike quite a few of our competitors) and sometimes the general level of scepticism is a bit waring.

Overall, we believe that Mumsnet is broadly a helpful and positive thing - something that (in the main) adds to the sum of human utility and happiness. Given that, I don't think anyone should be ashamed that it's grown, employs a fair number of people and turns a profit.

MNHQ

soniamumsnet · 14/01/2019 08:24

Thanks BIWI.

We've removed both the spam and the spammer.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 20/01/2019 09:18

Thanks for checking in and sorry for the delay in replying. The appeal has been promoted on the homepage (content block and DODs link), in our Daily email newsletter, on stickies, sliders and inliners (that's all the little message boxes you get) around the site (currently inliners are appearing in 20 different topics). We have also been sharing this on Twitter most days.

Our plan is put it back on the homepage and in another newsletter to give the appeal an extra push before it closes.

We have launched and promoted a guest post from Against Malaria and are trying to get guest posts from the other two charities as well. (Guest posts are also promoted on the homepage, in Daily and via stickies, sliders and inliners.) We've also encouraged those charities to share with their own member lists and on social media to encourage their supporters to donate via Mumsnet so they can get the matched funding.

In short we are really NOT trying to bury this!

If there's something else you'd like to see us do to promote it do shout - we'd love to get up to target. Many thanks.

MNHQ

BojanaMumsnet · 30/01/2019 15:33

Hello,

We're sorry that some of you haven't been seeing much about the fund-raising campaign. We can honestly say that the match-funding fund-raiser is a big event for us, and we've given this a lot more promotion around the site and on social media than we do for other MNHQ projects. The Talk ads have been viewed literally millions of times according to our data, and our email newsletters and social media feeds reach hundreds of thousands of people who might not be looking directly at Talk.

All of that said though, this obviously hasn't been our finest hour. Previous appeals tended to go well because there were stand-out charities that had emerged throughout the year on MN. There wasn't one of those this year, and we should definitely have taken that as a cue to consult users. Lessons have been learned and you can take it as read we'll be asking MNers what they think in good time next time around.

With just the last couple of days to go, we're going to be giving the appeal an extra push. We'd really like to have your help. One thing we've learned over the years is that there is nothing like word-of-mouth to support our appeals. If you can bring it to the attention of other MN users here on site, or to your family/friends/colleagues on social media, we'd really appreciate it. Here's the best link to share again: www.mumsnet.com/christmas/mumsnet-christmas-appeal-2018

Thanks
MNHQ

MNHQ

BojanaMumsnet · 31/01/2019 09:54

@GalacticChickenShit

But it's still not even on the homepage!!

Hi,

Just to confirm, the guest post from Women Supporting Women was up on the homepage yesterday, but the general appeal page is up today. Let us know if there's anything else we should be doing! Smile

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 05/02/2019 12:05

Hello all,

Our appeal is now closed and here are the totals raised:

Against Malaria Foundation: £9,567

The Trussell Trust: £325

Women Supporting Women at the Prince's Trust: £108

Matched by MNHQ, this will be:

Against Malaria Foundation: £19,134

The Trussell Trust: £650

Women Supporting Women at the Prince's Trust: £216

We had a last minute donation (slightly after the deadline but who cares Grin?) from a Mumsnet user who wanted to take the total donation to 10k with the balance to AMF, so that's brilliant news!

We've also learned some lessons from this appeal - we'll be starting earlier next year and asking for your input on which organisations you'd like to donate to, so look out for a thread the Autumn...

Big thanks to all who inputted and contributed.
Justine

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 06/02/2019 08:49

Yes they did.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/03/2019 11:48

Thought I'd share a sweet note we just got from AMF re the Christmas appeal donation...

Dear Justine and Bojana,

I wished to write and thank the senior team and all at Mumsnet for selecting AMF to be a beneficiary charity for Mumsnet’s Christmas Appeal 2018.

We have just heard that the final matching amount that will be sent across is a wonderful £9,567 giving a total raised, including Gift Aid, of £21,388.03!

Thanks also to all of those who donated and in particular to the two donors who donated multiple thousands of pounds each, which was both humbling and thrilling: humbling to receive donations of this size and thrilling to know what these donations and the total raised will achieve.

100% of this total will be used to buy 13,826 long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) that will protect an estimated 24,900 people when they sleep at night from the bites of malaria-carrying mosquitoes that would otherwise cause severe illness, or worse. That’s the equivalent of 50 villages protected thanks to you all. Brilliant.

These nets can be expected to save the lives of 10 people and prevent 10,000 cases of malaria. Further, by reducing sickness and allowing people to work i.e. function normally, the economic impact on the local community is estimated to be 12 x the total raised or £250,000, so both a humanitarian and an economic impact.

We have already allocated the donations to a specific net distribution so the funds have already been put to work. Everyone can follow where the nets are distributed via the Mumsnet fundraising page on the AMF website and we will make the full distribution details public when the distribution agreement is finally signed.

Warm regards and thank you all again,

Rob

Rob Mather

Founder/CEO, Against Malaria Foundation (AMF)

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