The annual National eWell-Being Awards praised the Samaritans' Making a Difference campaign which makes use of email to help provide support to those in need of their services.
Funded by the Vodafone UK Foundation, the email service was introduced in 1994 but its main development came in 2003 after the charity recognised the potential to provide confidential support online. The Samaritans now have the email service in 180 branches nationwide with 8,895 trained volunteers.
Dominic Rudd, chief executive of the Samaritans, said: "We have developed and established our email service as a highly effective way of providing emotional support to people who need Samaritans' help."
He added: "We'd certainly like to thank The Vodafone UK Foundation too, because they've been invaluable partners to us in reaching out, to offer our support to anyone in emotional distress - especially younger people, who make particular use of our email service."
The charity received a total of 154,000 emails in 2005 - a rise of 18 per cent compared to levels in 2004 - and it is estimated that the majority of emails are sent from people under the age of 24.
Last week marked the end of an innovative charity search scheme launched by Microsoft chief Bill Gates, which saw the firm's 'Click for Cause' websites donating money to refugee education programmes every time a visitor used the on-site Live Search engine.
The move was reminiscent of other portals such as GoodSearch.com, which donates a penny per search to a charity of the user's choice.
