Localgiving.com, which provides online fundraising services to small charities, has raised £750,000 for its charities in two days since the launch of a match funding initiative supported by the Office for Civil Society.

The website launched a £375,000 March Match Fund pot yesterday, matching pound for pound online donations from the public. Within 24 hours of launching most of this had been met by public donations and the website expects to exhaust the fund by the end of today.

Marcelle Speller, chief executive and founder of localgiving.com  said: “The March Match Fund initiative proves beyond doubt that there is an appetite in the country for giving locally.”

She added: “This has been an incredible week for localgiving.com not only have we given away £375,000 in record time but we passed the milestone of £1m in donations raised online."

Over Christmas it handed out the first tranche of £170,000 in match funding from the OCS with the money being matched in under a week.

Minister for civil society, Nick Hurd said: “Localgiving.com fills a niche in the sector which is very welcome and we wish them well going forward.”

Both initiatives so far have been available to English charities registered with localgiving.com but the organisation told civilsociety.co.uk that it had plans for match funding initiatives in Scotland and Wales.

It is planning a range of match funding initiatives involving individual business people and private companies. It already has one lined up next month in Peterborough from a local businessman keen to support local charities.

Localgiving.com was founded by Secret Millionaire participant, Marcelle Spencer, in 2008 and launched in November 2010 and now has 1,200 charities and local groups registered. It charges charities an annual fee of £60 plus VAT.