By Emma Kingsley, BBC charity appeals adviser
What can you do in 2 and a half minutes?
Perhaps you could send a couple of emails…. check a spreadsheet… or order something online. Or you could be listening to your charity’s appeal go out on BBC Radio 4, telling the story of what your organisation does and raising money and awareness.
Interested?
The BBC broadcasts 60 charity Access Appeals each year — 49 in the Radio 4 Appeal (those are the 2 and a half minute ones) and 11 on BBC TV’s Lifeline programme (they’re 9 minutes long). And if your charity meets the criteria you could be among them.
The BBC’s been making charity appeals for over a century. The first was in 1923, when it issued an appeal for the Winter Distress League, which raised £26 6s 6d. The amounts have increased considerably since then and in 2023-24 the Radio 4 Appeal and Lifeline raised a collective total of £2.3 million. That’s an average of £38k per charity. Of course, some appeals raise more and others raise less, and although we always hope that a charity will do well, we can never predict how an appeal will land with the audience.
But even the charities with lower totals usually say they’re glad to have had the experience. Because appeals don’t just raise funds — they raise awareness too. With the expertise of the BBC radio and TV production teams behind you, your charity can reach a whole new audience. People across the UK will learn about what you do and if they like your message, they may well sign up to be a supporter.
And appeals can be great for a charity’s morale. They take time and hard work — finding a presenter, working on a radio script or sourcing lots of case studies for filming — but charities often tell us of feeling a sense of elation when they see or hear the finished product on the BBC. And your staff will learn new skills during the production process, like scriptwriting and the art of telling evocative stories. A good appeal can really bring a charity together.
I mentioned finding a presenter, and that can also bring other benefits. You may want to work with someone who already knows and supports your organisation. But sometimes the presenter can be someone who’s new to the charity and becomes passionate about what you do. They might end up becoming an ambassador or a patron. It can be the start of a beautiful relationship.
So how do you go about getting an appeal?
We hold 4 application rounds each year so there’s always one open. You’ll need to read the guidance carefully and, if you qualify, then you register and fill out a detailed application form. We also ask to see some of your policies and financial details. Then each application is rigorously assessed, first by an expert external assessor and then again by a member of our Appeals Advisory Committee. After that there’s a meeting with the AAC and BBC production staff where we make the final decisions about which charities to feature. Sometimes a round may be very oversubscribed and then we have to make difficult choices. But at the end we’re confident that we’re putting the best possible mix of charities on air.
If you’re still interested— and I hope you are — then why not start thinking about it now? Talk to other CEOs who’ve had an appeal — you can see which other charities we’ve featured here and here. Our next rounds close on 1st Sept and 7th December. So why not take the plunge?
And then you could be spending that 2 and a half minutes in a very exciting way.