Charity partnerships – a more commercial relationship for fundraising

Published by Susan Robinson on 14 June 2021

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A number of charities, retailers and brands are working more closely together to help raise much needed funds. So how do these partnerships work and could they be right for your charity?

There are several schemes, such as Give as you Live Online, Quidco and TopCashback which are accessible and provide similar services and we have looked at Give as you Live for this article.

Give as you Live Online is an online shopping scheme set up to support a wide range of UK based charities of all sizes and it has raised over £14.3m for UK charities to date.

People sign up and choose the charity they wish to support from over 200,000+ UK charities.

Shopping doesn’t cost the donor any extra, the donation is made at no extra cost to the donor and it’s also free for the charity.

The key to a charity making this type of scheme work will be to stand out amongst the many participating charities who are all competing for donors attention, whilst their mind will be on their shopping.

Once on the website donors can browse all 4,500 participating stores. They will also get donation reminders so they don’t miss a donation. There is also an App – available for iPhone and iPad. Once the donor has chosen the store they want to shop at, they just follow the link to that organisation’s website and shop as normal. Once the donor has finished shopping, they receive an email to let them know how much has been raised.

The website has partnership agreements in place with 4,500 stores across the UK, including suppliers of insurance, energy and broadband. When customers visit and make a purchase through the Give as you Live website, the supplier gives a reward to Give as you Live. This reward is what is then used to donate to their chosen charity.

The donation amount varies from store to store and is often a percentage of what the donor spends – between 1% and 10% although it can be a fixed amount.

Charities are paid once a month via Give as you Live’s payment technology partner, Stripe. They can view the status of every donation within their account. A donation will typically move from ‘pending’ to ‘approved’ to ‘paid’ over the course of a few months.

These partnerships show how charity fundraising is constantly evolving and it is important to be aware of and adapt to help put your organisation in front of as many possible donors as possible. Charities need to be thinking broadly and digitally to help them to reach existing and new donors.

If you are thinking of partnering with other organisations to further your fundraising objectives, or would like to look at ways of increasing your revenue streams our team can help advise you further.

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