The Double-0 Charity

Double O was started by The Who in 1976 to help Erin Pizzey fund her Chiswick Women's Refuges. It then became the first concert fundraiser for Nordoff-Robbins. In 1983 Pete Townshend took over Double O and performed concerts to support a large number of drug rehab charities, the Prince's Trust and Rock Against Racism, and a one-off show at London’s Dominion Theatre – The Snowball Revue – to further fund Pizzey’s work.

The Trust now runs as a private dispersal charity focussed more than ever on 'survival' of drug and alcohol damage, domestic violence, sexual abuse, music education, emergency relief for International disasters, and young people's prison reform. It has dispersed about £4,000,000 since inception, and been indirectly responsible for the dispersal of another similar amount through Double O Promotions, which channels a lot of Townshend- and Who-related activity. In 1985, Townshend formed the band Deep End and put on two charity concerts at the Brixton Academy through Double O Promotions (recently released as part of Pete’s live ‘signature’ series). In 1986 DOP put on the Columbian Volcano Relief Concert.

From 1989 onwards the funds dispersed by Double O increased considerably because The Who reconvened for an anniversary tour, generating over $8,000,000 for children’s charities throughout the U.K. and U.S. in 1989 alone. The charity has a history of working both with individuals and large treatment programmes. In May 1999, for example, Townshend made a £20,000 donation to the Landsdowne House Alcohol Advisory Unit (The Chaucer Clinic in West Ealing).

In 2000, Double O held a charity Internet auction and donated £300,000 to Oxfam for their Mozambique Earthquake appeal. In 2005, The Who appeared in New York raising funds for Double O as part of a Four Seasons of Hope event (to benefit children in need), which was sponsored by Samsung.

Since 2002, all of the Who tours have been recorded, and live CDs of every show have been sold as part of the Encore series. All the proceeds, after profit, have gone to Double O - totalling about £1,000.000 so far.

The future of Double O is going to be tied more to the generation of money via the Internet.