21 Nov Havens Hospices to accept The Charity Shop Gift Card
Havens Hospices, which provides palliative nursing and supportive care to adults and children living with complex or incurable conditions across Essex, has become the latest charity to accept a new multi-retailer gift card that can be used exclusively in charity shops.
The Charity Shop Gift Card is launched in partnership with the Charity Retail Association (CRA) and will be sold and accepted in Havens Hospices’ 23 shops, which help raise money to fund the care provided across Essex.
As well as boosting charity funds, money spent by cardholders will have a positive effect on the environment by supporting the growing second-hand revolution, which is being led by the environmentally aware Gen Z and Millennials and is reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill.
Charity shops divert around 339,000 tonnes of textiles away from landfill or incineration every year, saving councils £31million in annual waste disposal charges*.
The gift cards themselves are recyclable and compostable.
The Charity Shop Gift Card has been developed by Gift Card CIC, a social enterprise, and gives regional and national charities that are members of the Charity Retail Association their first opportunity to tap into the £7billion-a-year gift card market**.
More charities across the country will join the scheme in the coming weeks and months.
Local authorities and other support agencies can also choose to partner with the scheme and use pre-loaded gift cards to distribute the financial assistance they provide to individuals and families, which will then be spent in participating charity shops.
The Charity Shop Gift Card is a member of Social Enterprise UK, and the Gift Card and Voucher Association.
Pre-loaded cards can be purchased now in all Havens Hospices shops, online and as e-vouchers at www.thecharityshopgiftcard.co.uk, and through supermarkets and other major retailers in 2022.
Lee Hodgins, Area Manager for Havens Hospice, said: “We are delighted to join this growing scheme which will generate much needed funds for the hospice and help introduce new people to charity shopping, especially now as people are considering Christmas gifts.”
Lee Fellows, Managing Director of The Charity Shop Gift Card, said: “Charities have a significant presence on the High Street but they have struggled to establish their own compelling gift card schemes, individually and collectively, because they do not all have shops in every town or city, and few have online stores.
“The gift card market is huge and growing, and central to our aim was to come up with a nationally accepted, multi-retailer scheme that allows charity shops to tap into that for the first time.
“This is a gift card for good, and we’re delighted to welcome Havens Hospices as the most recent charity to our scheme and to be supporting them in generating the vital income they need to operate their services for the community in Essex, while at the same time having a positive impact on the environment.”
