General Text Santa Questions:
Q. What is Text Santa?
A. ITV’s Text Santa is an annual Christmas charity appeal which helps raise money for a group of specially chosen charities, all of which offer life-changing services to vulnerable people throughout the UK. In 2012 we supported Age UK, Anthony Nolan, Carers UK, Marie Curie Cancer Care, Together for Short Lives and Whizz-Kidz
Q. How will the Text Santa charities benefit from Text Santa?
A. ITV operates the Appeal so that that 100% of the donations raised is split equally between the Text Santa charities. This means that any money you help raise will go to providing life-changing practical support to people in our communities – helping someone near you.
Q. Which charities will Text Santa support this year?
A. Text Santa 2013 is conducting an open application process to select the beneficiary charities for the 2013 Appeal. If your charity is interested in applying for 2013 please click the link below. The closing date and time for applications is midday on 22 March 2013 (although we reserve the right to extend this date).
Download the Application Form
Q: Will Text Santa just re-select the 2012 charities?
A. Text Santa charity selection is an open process. Previously selected charities are welcome to apply but we encourage new applicants to apply as well. All charities which apply will be treated the same and measured against the same criteria.
Q: How does Text Santa fit with ITV’s Charity Strategy?
A: Charitable giving is an essential part of our Corporate Responsibility (CR) strategy and Text Santa is a key appeal. In 2012, ITV helped to raise over £10.5 million for various charities, of which around £5 million was from direct ITV cash donations, and donations of expertise and facilities in kind.
Q: Why has Text Santa chosen to support UK charities only?
A: ITV support a diverse range of charities through various campaigns and appeals. These include international charities, national and small local charities. Text Santa is just one of our initiatives and is all about ‘Helping someone near year you’ and making a difference in a person’s community. Therefore it is essential that our chosen charities reflect ITV’s UK audience and have a physical presence across all our regions. For more information on other levels of support offered, both internationally and to small local charities, visit the ITV CR Website
Q: Why is there a minimum income level for beneficiaries so that only larger charities can apply?
A: Being a Text Santa beneficiary will significantly raise the profile of the charity with the potential for increased demand for services and information both from the public and the media. Based on previous experience, participation in this Appeal can have a huge impact in terms of demands on a charity’s resources and infrastructure - for example, a previous beneficiary reported a 1000% increase in public demand for their online services over the Christmas period and in terms of media support over 40 real life stories were sourced to share stories across our regions in 2012 We therefore need to ensure that our beneficiaries have the infrastructure in place to support an appeal of this size before, during and after the appeal.
This minimum income level requirement only applies to Text Santa charities and ITV does support smaller charities and local projects too through alternative initiatives. For more information, visit the ITV CR Website
Q: Why does the charity have to have a physical presence in a particular region or nation to be eligible?
A: ITV is a UK broadcaster and the centrepiece of the Text Santa Appeal is the Text Santa programme on ITV. We want to ensure that every viewer that supports Text Santa by donating feels engaged with the Appeal and can see their money can make a real difference to improving the quality of life for people locally through the services on offer. Therefore it’s essential that our chosen charities support the regions within our UK broadcast area.
Q: Why is it important that the chosen charities offer practical support or services to the community as part of their remit?
A: Text Santa is about being able to immediately improve the quality of life for others through the donations raised. Although we recognise that charities have overhead and administration costs, and research is of significant importance to our communities, the essence of Text Santa is about transparency and our donors seeing how their money is translated into help for those in need. ITV’s support of the Appeal means that 100% of donations (and any Gift Aid) go directly to the charity and ITV expects those donations to be put to use within the community. Therefore each charity that applies must be able articulate how they would spend 100% of the money on specific practical support or services for people locally.
Q. Will Text Santa have its own donation routes, or will the charities be expected to provide these?
A. Text Santa works with third parties to provide an Appeal specific text, landline and online donation service. These donation routes are set up and overseen by ITV at no cost to the charities.
Q. Why do applicant charities have to be a member of JustGiving?
A. JustGiving has over the past 2 years provided the Text Santa appeal with operational support for online donations and Gift Aid. Practically, in order to provide this support, JustGiving requires the charities to be members.
Q. Why do applicant charities have to agree to license their intellectual property and appoint ITV as agent as part of the Appeal?
A. It is important to keep the processes around the Appeal as efficient as possible. Amongst other things, ITV’s support of the Appeal includes engaging with commercial and technical partners and (as Text Santa is itself not a charity) may need to engage with those partners on behalf of the charities including providing logos and other promotional material.
Q. How do we find out more about Text Santa and other ITV CR initiatives?
A. More information about Text Santa and other ITV CR initiatives can be found at the ITV CR Website or by contacting responsibility@itv.com