This year’s Big Give Christmas Challenge has so far raised over £10m for 350 charities.

The organisers were also relieved to report that the technical problems that beset the 2011 Challenge were all resolved, and the website ran smoothly from the start, even when donations peaked at more than 10 per second.

The 2012 figure takes the total amount raised by The Big Give Christmas Challenge in its five years of existence, to more than £40m. The annual matched-funding event works by charities encouraging their donors to make or pledge donations during the Challenge period in December, which are then matched by funders who have agreed to be Big Give Charity Champions.  These champions include the Reed Foundation, Icap, Candis Club, Ethiopiaid and the Waterloo Foundation.

This year's Challenge began at 10am last Thursday, 6 December, and matching funds were released at 10am on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Donations are matched on a first-come, first-served basis and so far more than 11,000 online donations have been doubled - with £4m raised in the first hour alone.

While some charities hit their targets within a few minutes of the Challenge opening, others still have funds available to match and will continue to double their donations up until the Challenge ends on 19 December.

Last year’s challenge, which lasted five days, raised more than £11.5m, with £1.1m raised in gift aid from online donations alone. This was in spite of technical problems which caused the site to crash on the first day due to high demand.

The average amount raised by charities taking part was £25,000, but 13 charities managed to raise more than £100,000 in the five days. WWF UK was the biggest winner, raising a total of £250,375, followed by the Prince’s Trust which raised £217,324.

This year, fewer charities are taking part and so although this means the total raised will be slightly lower than last year, those charities participating are expected to raise more on average.