Charity doesn't work! That's right, according to Stephen Bailey of Penny On, charity doesn't work. I have to say that in the context it was said, I totally agree with him. You may of heard the saying that if you give a man a fish he will eat for the day, but give him a fishing rod and teach him to fish, he will eat for the rest of his life. What Stephen is talking about here is responsibility and self sustainability. Now to be fair, there are many charities that promote this same message. It's about empowering people to do it for themselves. As far as similarities with other charities go, this is about where it ends.

Penny On is fundamentally a fund raising organisationbusiness. The concept of it is so simple it will take seconds to explain, if the name already hasn't. Every time you buy something, whether that be in a supermarket or an on line retailer, you have the opportunity to put a penny on that purchase. Simple as that. All of those pennies will then go to good causes. Penny On isare aiming for 50% to go to local good causes and 50% going internationally, unless the retailer specifies otherwise and wishes to support one particular cause. But donating a penny won't make a difference, will it? Think about how many transactions occur in this country every day. Forget the entire country, imagine how many transactions take place in one major supermarket each day. Even at one penny each time, this alone could raise well in excess of £100,000 every day. The potential for fund raising is enormous and the consumer will always have the choice, they will make the decision at point of sale and request to put a penny on their bill. The other great thing about this, besides its simplicity, is that all of the technology to do it already exists. If you request to put a penny on, the retailer simply scans a bar code and that's it.

Martin Dewhurst

The idea for Penny On came back in 2002 when Martin Dewhurst was on an NGO, (Non Governmental Organisation) Project), in the Sahara Desert. Whilst he was there, he thought there has to be a better way of raising money and getting it to the people. What he wanted was to get back to the lowest common denominator and have the simplest system possible. Once Martin had the concept, he brought in a company called Design Extreme, who are based in Manchester, to do the brand design. It took until 2007 to register Penny On as a charity and in 2009 the first proof of concept went ahead in a large discount retail small store in Chorley. During tThe first 12 months of this proof of concept is were there is no staff intervention, that is they do not ask the customer if they would like to put a penny on. This is actually proving quite frustrating for the staff as they totally get the idea and just want to be asking customers, but they can't as Penny Onthey needs to find out what the up take is just using in store and point of sale marketing. So far this is looking like between 8 and 10%, which is amazing considering that it's not a known brand and no one has prompted the customers to donate. The 2nd 12 months will be with staff intervention, which they are very much looking forward to, and I can only imagine what the up take figures will be then.

The other great thing about this fund raising system Martin came up with is that 100% of the pennies donated go to the good causes. This is done by having support from the business community. You can support Penny On very simply by making an annual payment of £20.-20 plus 1 pence per employee per day. So that's £3.-65 per employee for the year. This money goes towards the Penny On running costs of the charity, which enables every penny of the pennies to go to the good causes.

Some of the companies in Manchester already supporting Penny On are Mazars, Ralli, Intent Design, Blue Monkey Marketing, Design Extreme, Hallidays and BRX Northwest. SME's get the Penny On concept very quickly. They understand it and what's more, understand how to createget value from it. In fact it can also add value to a larger retailer, because of the way the system is set up it can feed back management information to the retailer.

Penny On took the decision from the outset not to invest money in a national marketing campaign. Everything they do is via word of mouth marketing, which is all about relationship building and relationship building builds permanency. It's an investment of time, not money. Also, as businesses get involved and support Penny On, then the staff that work there are also consumers and they can also continue that support every time they shop.

So if you're a company that has large volumes of transactions, please contact Penny On and become one of the growing number of pioneering businesses to adopt the scheme, if not, then please still contact Penny On and become one of a growing number of support companies who's crucial yet small donations allow every one of those transaction pennies to go to good causes.

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