Microdonation charity Pennies saw an additional 107,000 donations throughout December, bringing the number of donations received since its launch in November 2010 to over 1.5 million.
The scheme has steadily grown in strength since its launch. Its first month saw 53,739 microdonations made by patrons to retailers registered with the service. By November 2011, this number had reached 174,266 donations. But this year’s Christmas rush saw 281,385 donations made, an increase of more than 60 per cent on November 2011.
Some £72,500 was raised throughout December, representing nearly 20 per cent of the £365,000 total raised by the charity since its inception.
The charity chose to praise two retailers in particular for their efforts in the week before Christmas - toy store the Entertainer and restaurant chain Zizzi: “Nearly £18,000 was raised in just a few days. More than half of that came from customers shopping at the Entertainer, the first retailer to introduce Pennies at high street shop tills. Customers at Zizzi restaurants were also particularly generous in the run-up to Christmas,” Pennies advised.
The Pennies system has now been adopted by nine major retailers which ask their customers to round up their bill to the nearest pound, with the additional pennies going to Pennies. The charity currently distributes these funds to 27 charities, including the Children's Burns Trust and Shelter, many of which have been nominated by the retailers.
Pennies advised that it is currently working hard to encourage more retailers to join the scheme to maintain December’s heights.
Online success for Unicef UK
Also this week, children's charity Unicef UK announced that its online fundraising platform My Fundraising has raised £500,000 in eight months since its update relaunch. The site was revamped with a clearer navigation structure and streamlined donation process, including the addition of PayPal services in April last year.
Analysis of the site's usage has shown an increase of £23 per donation, up from an average donation of £25 on the previous My Fundraising site to £48 on the current site.
Unicef UK's fundraising initiatives manager, Alyrene Rosser, dubbed the relaunch the charity's "fundraising success story of 2011".
"I think it's achieved such a lot in a short space of time because it's so easy to navigate and use, and has a clear, simple donation process."
But in contrast to the Pennies donation system, Unicef UK says that because it claims full ownership of My Fundraising it has full access to the site's analytics and supporter and donor data, a huge benefit.
"Not only has this site raised a phenomenal amount of money, but we have the data for every person who's donated, which we can use to communicate more effectively with supporters and build on our success in 2012," said Rosser.
