Help keep access to family history free with the Big Give Christmas Challenge!
UPDATE
We managed to raise our pledge target of £5,000 thanks to our loyal supporters and volunteers. We weren't selected for that to be matched by a Big Give champion, which brought our overall target to £10,000.
The campaign ran from November 29th to December 6th and we managed to surpass the target through the generosity of our donors, raising a total of £12,772!
A huge thank you to each and every one of you. We know that times are hard for lots of us right now, so this means so much to our charity.
This year, Free UK Genealogy is looking to raise £20,000 through the Big Give Christmas Challenge. We aim to spend this on modernising and improving our services across all our websites.
Our Free websites (FreeBMD, FreeCEN and FreeREG) are all looking at improvements which will help to improve user and transcriber experiences.
FreeBMD must be updated and refreshed to provide better user search facilities and transcriber tools. We want to enhance the FreeCEN interface for users on phones and tablets and increase transcriber flexibility in data fields. In addition, FreeREG hopes to improve transcription tools online and offline and improve search engine features, such as wildcard options.
Unfortunately, without extra funding, it will be some time before we will be able to implement any changes to the websites.
As this is our first Christmas Challenge, we’re keen to be realistic and successful! So we are asking for your help with the first phase, which is to gain enough pledges to reach our £5,000 target. We need supporters willing to pledge at least £100. A pledge is a promise to match donations made during the Christmas Challenge.
Once pledges are in, the second phase begins. Individual Big Give Champions will select to double a charity's fundraising. For example, if a Champion picks Free UK Genealogy, this will be a fantastic opportunity to raise funds and help improve FreeBMD/CEN/REG.
You won’t need to pay anything until after the campaign ends in early December. If you want to help, please act now, as the deadline for pledges is the 2nd of September 2022
You can make your pledge here: https://www.thebiggive.org.uk/s/pledge?campaignId=a056900002NEB61AAH
All donations made during the Christmas Challenge will be matched with the pledges previously raised. This means that every £1 you pledge can become £2, and if a Big Give Champion selects us, every £1 you pledge can become £4.
This video helps explain the process:
If you're not in a position to offer a pledge, please consider donating any amount you wish instead when the campaign goes live on 29th of November.
We're very excited to be part of the Big Give Christmas Challenge, and we hope you will be too.