Your donation: where it goes and what it does
BBC Children in Need is a fundraiser and grant giver. That means that we ask the public to raise and donate lots of money so that we can make a difference to the children and young people who need us most – right across the UK.
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Setting our grant budget
We set out our ‘grant budget’ at the beginning of our grant making year in November, but organisations can apply to us for funding at any time, throughout the year.
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Your donations
The public generously raises and donates money for our annual Appeal.
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Application reviews
Although the money takes a while to come in, our trustees, volunteer committees and staff start saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to projects’ funding applications, based on our strict criteria. It takes less than a year to allocate money raised to projects.
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Paying out the money
Once allocated, we don’t give out the money to projects all at once. We pay out the money in instalments over the lifetime of the grant so that we can do some checks and balances and make sure the cash is really doing what it’s supposed to, making a difference to young lives. It’s the really responsible way of doing things.
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Keeping us running
Whilst the money is waiting to go to projects, we keep it in the bank and low risk investments which earn a return which is used to help run BBC Children in Need.
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Helping children and young people across the UK be the best they can be.
That way, your donations help us be there for children and young people who need us most. Then we start all over again!
Will my entire donation go to initiatives that help children to thrive?
We believe that the best charities to donate to in the UK are those that pass all of the funds they receive on to the causes they champion.
Of course, charities have administration costs – so finding a sustainable way to keep everything up and running is a big challenge.
At BBC Children in Need, we fund our grantees gradually, which means there are always amounts waiting with us to be distributed. We use this money in the most intelligent way possible – keeping it in accounts that will attract the best interest rates and making use of low-risk investment strategies to achieve a return that will help our organisation to run smoothly.
That means that we are among the UK charities that give the most to their cause from the sponsorship kindly provided by fundraisers and the general public.
Your donation will be used to fund local charity organisations and projects which support children and young people across the UK. In fact, you can see every single one of our current projects on this map. You may well find one just around the corner from you! You can also find out how we carefully select our funding recipients by exploring the Grants section of our site.
