The Wilderness Foundation UK is one of five charities that have been selected by fundraising website “The Big Give” to benefit from a matched funding programme. When the donations website launches next week, for every pound that one of our supporters donates using the Big Give site, the Reed Foundation will match it with another pound. Each supporter can donate up to £1,000 and there is the potential for the Foundation to receive a maximum of £20,000 in matched funding next Monday.
The scheme will launch on Monday 23rd February 2009 at 10am. The money will be allocated on a first come, first served basis, so it is important that our supporters make their donations as soon as possible after the launch of the scheme. A similar scheme run last year saw the match fund exhausted in just forty-five minutes, so there really is an urgency to supporting the Wilderness Foundation UK on this occasion.
Philanthropist and Big Give founder Alec Reed has put up the money in the hope that it will produce a ‘survival of the fittest’-style competition among animal charities to get the greatest amount of money for their cause.
Reed said the match offer would honour the spirit of revolutionary scientist Charles Darwin.
“I’m delighted to celebrate Darwin’s 200th birthday this way. Just as favourable traits became more common in natural selection, more popular charities will receive more money from my matched funding scheme,” he said.
The Big Give/Reed Foundation have focused on our Wild Britain programme – an exciting project to promote the re-establishment of wilderness areas in upland Britain leading where practical to the prospective reintroduction of our vanished species.
Reductions in EU farming subsidies, together with a growing interest in the value of wild places and the economic and social benefits which they can confer, are creating a unique opportunity to promote such schemes for large scale habitat restoration.
This initiative has important implications for conservation in developing countries. If Britain is seen to be re-establishing wild places, and moreover for economic as well as conservation reasons, then developed country proposals for preservation of diminishing habitat and vanishing species in the Third World would carry significantly more credibility.
In this current financial climate and with so many excellent programmes being run by the Wilderness Foundation UK, we would ask you to help us now – your support is needed more now than ever before.
Please visit http://www.thebiggive.org.uk/matched_funds.php on Monday 23rd February from 10:00 a.m. to give us your support – and double your donation to enable us to continue to work for Wilderness, Wildlife and People. Click on the Darwins Natural Selection link to make your donation.
Thank you.
