First contactless charity giving through windows

Cancer Research UK has completed a collaboration with outdoor media owners Clear Channel to bring contactless giving to four Cancer Research UK shop windows in the UK. In this first use of contactless giving technology, the public had the opportunity to donate £2 to the charity by simply tapping their contactless debit or credit card on the window.

The opportunity to donate through the shop window was available 24 hours a day. Once a donation was made an interactive screen showed the supporter the positive impact their donation would have in the fight against cancer.

Paul Clarke of Cancer Research UK says: “We were delighted to be premiering this world-first use of contactless giving technology. The contactless giving through four of our shop windows was a new and exciting way for people to donate to our work."

Neil Chapman of Clear Channel says: ‘"This collaboration is a great example of how both existing and emerging technology can be leveraged along with consumer behaviour to deliver an innovative new way to raise funding. This contactless window display was an important step towards offering brands a contactless payment solution away from their point of sale and works brilliantly with the tap donation."

Charities hit by foreign exchange losses

International charities have seen millions of pounds wiped from their balance sheets through foreign exchange volatility according to research from global payment company AFEX. An analysis of the most recent annual reports of 10 of the world’s largest charities showed losses related to currency movements of up to £7 million.

The likes of Greenpeace, Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam all reported significant losses. In total, the 10 charities reviewed lost a net total of £14.8 million due to currency movements in their last reporting periods (a mean average loss of £1.5 million). Of the 10 charities reviewed, half made gains as a result of foreign exchange price movements.

"Any organisation that operates internationally is likely to face FX risk and for charities, which typically need to transfer funds around the world, often to countries experiencing periods of instability, those risks can be huge," says Rachel Hollos of AFEX. "It may not be possible to entirely remove any downside but in adopting an appropriate strategy, charities can cap their potential losses and maintain some upside if currencies move in their favour."

The majority of those charities reviewed - 8 of the 10 - do explicitly reference their attempts to mitigate FX risk with the likes of foreign currency forward contracts. Such efforts can backfire, however, if not executed correctly. In June last year Greenpeace reported a loss of some £3 million after one of its employees took out currency contracts that speculated on a weak euro. The euro subsequently strengthened against the US dollar in the second half of 2013.

"With some exceptions, major charities should have a strong idea of what payments and fund transfers they are likely to be making across a given year. With those in mind they need to adopt a smart, proactive approach to currency risk management," says Mario Pisano, head of global treasury at AFEX. "It’s unlikely any single strategy will cover their risk entirely. One would typically advise to combine forward contracts, options and buying in the market at the spot rate. Doing so creates a diversified currency portfolio with the obvious risk management benefits."

Certain currency pairs have showed marked volatility over the last two years. The Indian rupee, for example, depreciated against the pound by 22% in the six months from March 2013. Any charity agreeing a fixed contract for the Indian currency ahead of that depreciation will likely have lost out significantly, according to Pisano.

AFEX reviewed the most recent annual reports for Oxfam, WWF, Greenpeace, the Red Cross, Save the Children, Cafod, Médecins Sans Frontières, Amnesty International, Water Aid, and Christian Aid.

Massive sum raised by coffee morning

Thanks to the millions of people who got together for coffee and cake last September, Macmillan Cancer Support’s World’s Biggest Coffee Morning raised a truly huge £25m for people affected by cancer. Macmillan’s director of fundraising, Simon Phillips, says: “It’s a remarkable achievement and I would like to thank all of our wonderful coffee morning hosts and guests who made this possible."

The event is not only Macmillan’s flagship fundraiser but is claimed by the charity to be both an original and the most successful charity fundraising event of its sort. The simple idea of getting together with friends, colleagues or neighbours to hold a coffee morning and donate the money to Macmillan has now raised a total of £139m.

The first official coffee morning in 1991 saw 2,600 supporters raise £208,000 with the number of registered hosts rising to over 200,000 in 2014. In 2013 the event raised £20.5m and the fundraising goal for 2014 was £23m.

This year will see the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning celebrate its 25th birthday on Friday 25 September with corporate sponsors M&S back on board for a fifth year.

Data protection lessons for all charities

A number of charities, including those with field workers accessing data from home or otherwise remotely, and sometime actually having it on their person for field visits, have over the past been severely criticised by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for breaches of data protection and subsequently been fined.

In light of this a report by the ICO on a group of charities makes very useful reading for all charities, and should be measured against their own data protection practices when using both paid staff and volunteers.

The ISO has published a report highlighting how organisations attached to the Victims Services Alliance (VSA) are looking after people’s information in compliance with the Data Protection Act (DPA).

The VSA is a national network of 69 charities and voluntary groups who work with victims of crime. They work to improve services to victims of crime, their families and others who may have been affected by crime.

In order to provide these services they may be handling sensitive personal information, including details of individuals’ health and welfare. These organisations also rely on volunteers and temporary workers which means they can have a high turnover of staff.

Victoria Heath, ICO good practice group manager for the criminal and justice sector, says: “Members of the Victims Services Alliance face a difficult challenge when it comes to looking after personal information. They often rely on a regular stream of volunteers to provide support to the victims they care for, while handling sensitive details relating to the abuse or mistreatment of vulnerable people.

"This creates a unique challenge and one we are pleased to say many organisations are meeting.

“Nevertheless, there are still a number of areas where organisations could be doing more to keep people’s information secure. For example, most VSA organisations don’t appear to have a formal retention schedule explaining when personal information should be securely deleted. There was also inconsistent advice given to home workers.

With 41% of VSA staff working from home these are important issues that need addressing. Our report will help organisations achieve this by introducing relatively minor changes to their existing practices.”

Some of the areas of best practice identified in the outcomes report that other VSA organisations can learn from include:

The outcomes report also highlights the need for improvements in a number of priority areas including:

Scottish carrier bag charge to help third sector

Asda is supporting local communities across Scotland by donating the net proceeds from the Scottish Government’s 5p single use carrier bag charge. The company is calling its approach "Asda Community Capital". Between October 2014, when the charge came into force, and December 2014, almost £145,000 has been raised.

Asda will donate the funds arising from the bag charge to support innovative social enterprises and community projects across Scotland. In what is a UK-first, the partnership with Scotland’s leading funder to the third sector, Social Investment Scotland (SIS) will see half of the proceeds distributed through loans, helping third sector organisations which otherwise would find it difficult to access funding.

Investment capital of between £10,000 and £50,000 will be made available for new social enterprises, meeting a perceived gap in the current market for smaller loans. Interest will not be charged during the first year of investment and from the second year, all interest raised on the Community Capital loans will be reinvested to support more good causes, the idea being to deliver sustainable social impact in communities across Scotland.

The other half of the funds will be donated to Foundation Scotland to be distributed in small grants. Customers and colleagues will have the opportunity to nominate projects and good causes in their local community that would benefit from Asda Community Capital grants of up to £2,000. To ensure the grants are as locally relevant as possible, regional selection panels of Asda colleagues will vote on the projects to benefit.

Estimates suggest that single use carrier bag charging by Asda could raise more than half a million pounds in the first year. Although if the policy has the Scottish Government’s desired effect carrier bag use will fall and there will be a subsequent drop in proceeds.

West of Scotland initiatives for the blind

People with sight loss in the West of Scotland will benefit from two new services being established in Paisley.

Scottish charity Royal Blind is set to build a new 54 bedroom nursing home specialising in the care of visually impaired older people on Hawkhead Road in Paisley. The home will build on the success of Braeside House, the charity’s specialist nursing home for visual impaired older people in the Liberton area of Edinburgh. This will be the first time that Royal Blind has dedicated facilities on the ground in the West of Scotland.

On the same site, Royal Blind’s sister charity, Scottish War Blinded, will construct a day centre for visually impaired veterans of the armed services. The new centre will provide similar services to the charity’s Linburn Centre in West Lothian. It will enable people in the West of Scotland with a visual impairment who have at any time served in the armed forces to benefit from art and wood workshops, sporting leisure and social activities, and daily living skills including rehabilitation and mobility.

Big Scottish charity network update

The National Trust Scotland has implemented a new network architecture from network solutions company Brocade. The charity is responsible for 190,000 acres of countryside and employs 540 full-time and 750 seasonal staff. With 130 geographically dispersed IT sites linked to a core network that had not been updated for some time, the charity needed a network infrastructure that could support its employees effectively, both in the short and long term.

“Our existing core IT infrastructure was certainly in need of an update,” says Scott Newton, head of IT at National Trust for Scotland. “Although as an organisation we take conservation very seriously, there was a risk that this was starting to extend to our network as well. This meant that our IT team was having to spend more and more time just keeping things up and running.

"As user demand for connectivity and bandwidth continues to grow, we simply would not have been able to cope. We needed to invest in an infrastructure that would allow staff to access the online resources they need, quickly and reliably.

“To date, the deployment has been hugely successful. We now have 40 GbE connection speeds up and down the stack, which is a massive improvement on what we had before. Our core infrastructure is now also far more reliable and resilient, which has significantly improved the experience for our users and helped the IT team to spend time on other projects, rather than focusing on just keeping the network up and running.”

Grooming range partnership for services charity

Help for Heroes has entered into a partnership with Wingman, a male grooming range, which has pledged to raise over £10,000 in the first year. The partnership comes as Wingman launches its new five strong product range, SkinFuel, which is specifically linked to the arrangement.

5p from every SkinFuel and 3-in-1 shower gel product sold will be donated to Help for Heroes. Wingman wants to help raise awareness of the individuals who the charity helps, and show the wounded that they have the support of the British public; reinforced by its brand message "we’ve got your back". The company recognises the great synergy between Wingman’s brand values "trust, loyalty and banter" and the camaraderie amongst those supported by Help the Heroes.

Bryn Parry, CEO and co-founder of Help for Heroes, says: “We are extremely grateful for the support Wingman is giving us and we’re incredibly exited to be working with such a fresh and young brand. Wingman has really thought about why and how they want to help wounded servicemen and women and we are confident they can represent the charity, and most importantly help the real heroes.”

Stu Jolly, founder of Wingman says: “We’re enormously proud to be associated with Help for Heroes and it is a partnership we can see lasting for the foreseeable future. We hope to support the wounded and their families, raise awareness of the support delivered by Help for Heroes, raise some money and of course have fun along the way!”

Grants made for marine conservation

Sea-Changes, the marine conservation fundraising charity, has completed its latest grant allocation process and has made grants ranging from £500 to £1,000 to seven UK marine conservation charities and projects. The grants will fund projects right across the UK. The chosen projects are of a practical nature such as on-land research, educational events and resources for the public on marine conservation initiatives.

They include grants to: the Angling Trust - angling education and awareness signs; British Divers Marine Life Rescue – mobile education pack; Durham Wildlife Trust – a North Sea explorers project; Manx Wildlife Trust - an identification guide to help people recognise invasive species; Marine Conservation International - the Thames Harbour porpoise project ; the National Lobster Hatchery – to pay for printing of a book for children "Claude gets his Claws", with a strong marine conservation theme; the Scottish Seabird Centre – cameras to see views of the full breeding cycle of the grey seals.

Charities to benefit from personal commitment

MLP Law will be raising money for two Manchester charities which have personally touched the lives of its staff: the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Charity (RMCHC) and the Alex Hulme Foundation after inviting suggestions from all of its team. It means that MLP Law staff will split the money raised from fundraising activities throughout 2015 between the two charities.

Several members of the MLP Law team have already agreed to donate the money they raise from completing the ASICS Greater Manchester Marathon 2015 to the RMCHC and the Alex Hulme Foundation. The Altrincham headquartered is among the main sponsors of the ASICS Greater Manchester Marathon on 19 April 2015 – and the RMCHC is one of the marathon’s official charities.

The law firm’s choice of the RMCHC is particularly poignant for Stephen Attree, managing director of MLP Law. His son Ben was diagnosed with a brain tumour when he was about six months old. The initial prognosis was uncertain and RMCH took care of him for more than 12 weeks while he was undergoing treatment. But thanks to the dedicated support of the hospital’s nurses and doctors, Ben recovered and he is now a happy and healthy seven year old.

Meanwhile, the selection of the Alex Hulme Foundation has been championed by Lesley Gill, director and head of wills, trusts and probate at MLP Law. In November 2014, she attended a business lunch at Sale in Greater Manchester in aid of the charity and was deeply touched by what she heard.

At the event, Alex Hulme’s father Dave recounted the story of his son’s life. Born in July 1999, Alex was diagnosed with B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in March 2011 but lost his six-month battle with cancer in September 2011. A month later, Alex’s parents and aunt formed the Alex Hulme Foundation to help improve the research into and treatment of this disease. The foundation, which is based in Sale, is dedicated to the memory of Alex Hulme’s life.