Pennies (digital charity box)

Operation

Shoppers are privately invited to donate small amounts (1p–99p) to charity when they pay for goods and services by card in participating retailers. All the money raised through Pennies goes to charity. Pennies’ partner retailers nominate the charity or charities to benefit from donations. In January 2013, just over two years after launch, people had donated 4 million times through Pennies, raising £1,000,000 for charity. As of September 2015, over 20 million consumer donations had been made through the digital charity box.

Retailers that have customers paying by card can easily implement Pennies on their payment system. Those with electronic stock control software set up Pennies as a stock-keeping unit. Sales staff are not involved in donations; when the customer is ready to pay for goods or services, the PIN pad prompts the customer with the option to round up or top up their purchase and add a donation to the payment.

Pennies launched online in November 2010 with Domino’s Pizza and has since partnered many other national, regional and local companies, both in-store and online. In its first year, Pennies received over one million donations, totalling £250,000, rising to £300,000 for the calendar year 2011. Pennies is available in store with a range of retailers, including The Entertainer, Zizzi Restaurants, The Fragrance Shop, The Rugby Football Union and London restaurant chain Drake & Morgan. It is available online with Domino’s Pizza, Travelodge, Evans Cycles and Dobbies, among many others.

By February 2012, one million donations had been made at Domino's; although the most common amount was 1p, the total had reached £230,000. Other businesses chose to offer customers the option to add a fixed 'top up' amount, such as a 25p donation at Zizzi.

Recognition

In June 2011, Pennies won an award in the 'fundraising' category of the Technology4Good awards (T4G). It was also nominated by Third Sector magazine in its Britain’s Most Admired Charities 2011 awards in the Most Innovative Charity category. In late 2012, Pennies won the 'Best Not for Profit IT Project' in IT Industry Awards held by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT and Computing magazine.

In May 2013, Pennies was named as a finalist in the first Google Global Impact Challenge UK, which recognises innovative non-profits using technology for social good.

Pennies has also received messages of support from prominent figures in the retail and technology industry. Joanna Shields, former Vice President of Facebook, described Pennies as "a simple idea that removes friction from giving", and UK Digital Champion Martha Lane Fox has said that Pennies' "simple yet clever technology can make a real difference when the charitable sector needs it most".

Public figures such as Prince Harry, Cheryl Cole, Jason Donovan, Gary Barlow and Jeremy Irons have also supported Pennies.

The Pennies Foundation

The Pennies Foundation is a charity registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales and a company limited by guarantee registered in England.

The November 2010 annual accounts showed that philanthropists and foundations had contributed over £1 million to The Pennies Foundation in cash and in kind as start-up gifts, to establish the charity's infrastructure and cover its running costs in the early years. Point-of-sale donations were accounted for separately as "'pennies' donations received" and set aside as "designated funds", to be passed on without deduction. However, the Foundation acknowledged in 2011 that, in order to be sustainable in the long term, it will become necessary to start retaining a small percentage of each donation.