Charity Christmas cards less profitable than reported

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 28 Oct 2009

The charity Christmas card market is even less generous than the recent Which? report suggests, according to the Charities Advisory Trust.

The Trust has labelled the recent Which? report on the state of the charity Christmas card as “incomplete”.

Which? reported that the lowest percentage donation to charity from any Christmas card came from Next and House of Fraser, which each gave 6 per cent of the value of cards to a nominated charity.

However, Charities Advisory Trust has found Cards Galore to have a card with the lowest percentage going to charity at 4.5 per cent. The high street chain was awarded the Trust’s annual ‘Scrooge Award’ this year for having 35 out of its 36 charity Christmas cards giving less than 10 per cent of their sale price to charity. Harrods and Fenwicks tied for the trust’s annual ‘Georgy Porgy Award’ as more than half of their cards gave less than 10 per cent of their sale price to charity.

The Which? report found that the average donation made by charity Christmas cards, which are worth around £50m to the sector as a whole, was 13 per cent.

The Charities Advisory Trust also warned that the situation was less positive than it initially appeared.

“The Which? report also missed the most critical, relatively new development, which is that ‘charity’ cards are being used as loss leaders by high street retailers and supermarkets. ‘Three for two’ offers reduce the amount going to charity,” the Trust argued. “Isn’t it time that charity cards became a way of raising money for charity, rather than for retailers?”

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