Hey everyone,
I hope you’re managing to keep well and safe.
As you all know, the UK is going through an incredibly difficult and turbulent time with the outbreak of Covid-19 and coming together as a community has never been more important.
You may have seen some of the ways we are already helping people stay connected here. We’re supporting vulnerable members in our own giffgaff community and also helping those most in need in local communities across the nation. We are privileged to be supporting our NHS frontline staff, Citizen’s Advice volunteers, vulnerable children in their quest to homeschool themselves and patients in hospital isolation that need a way to keep in touch with their loved ones. Community remains at the heart of our business and it’s never been more important than now.
As we mentioned in the same update, we have had a lot of requests coming through and we have been looking for a framework that we could implement that would help us handle things more efficiently but also open up the opportunity for members to get involved if they want and are able to.
With all of that in mind, I am pleased to let you know that we are launching the goodybank, a fund set up to help those in need - from giffgaff members to communities across the country.
How does it work?
We are fully committed to continue supporting our vulnerable members through this time and if you feel you need help, then please get in contact here, and our agents will help you wherever they can. The passion that members have shown about supporting each other has been incredible to see, and we want to give members that are looking to do more an easy way to get involved. The goodybank will give the choice to any member to buy additional credit that will then be donated to other members facing hardship in the form of minutes, texts and data. Anything donated to this part of the fund will be matched by giffgaff so as many members can benefit as possible.
We’ve also seen a lot of you express concern for communities in need across the country. For this, we have partnered up with Neighbourly, an award-winning giving platform that connects businesses with charities in need of support. They have a fund that guarantees that the right people at a local level will be given the help they need through the charities that have access to Neighbourly’s Covid-19 community fund, and working with them, we’ve been able to get giffgaff members access to donate to this fund as well as the businesses already involved. We have pledged £75,000 to this fund to get started, and we have set up a Donate to Neighbourly button on the goodybank page to allow you to easily read more about where the funds are going and make your donation.
We’re sure you have a few questions so we have tried to answer a few of them here. But if you want to know anything else, please post here and we will do our best to answer.
FAQs:
Where is the goodybank?
You can find the landing page for goodybank here. From there you will be able to choose whether you would like to donate to other members facing hardship or donate to the Neighbourly fund supporting good causes that are helping communities across the UK affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.
How will giffgaff identify members in hardship?
We know that every situation is different which means that the type of support our vulnerable members need varies. This is why we are asking members that are facing hardship during this time to raise a case with an agent.
How will you make sure everyone knows about the goodybank?
We are planning on sending emails to all our members that are opted into marketing to share the information we have in this post about what the goodybank is and how it works.
How much can members donate through credit?
If members want to donate credit, we have 3 preset amounts of £2.50, £5 and £10 but members also have the option of adding in their own. The minimum donation is set at 50p.
I get a message saying to try a different card. Why?
You might be seeing this when trying an unsupported card, such as American Express. We’re also experiencing an issue with cards from some banks, which we’re working to correct as soon as possible.
How much can members donate through Neighbourly?
If members want to donate to the Neighbourly fund, there will be preset amounts of £5, £10, £20, £50 and £100, with the option to input a different amount as well. The minimum donation on this option is set at £5.
Reading through the community these last few weeks it has been really great to see so many of you supporting each other in various ways. Your positivity and support for each other has been an inspiration to all of us.
Thank you,
Ash
Updates
We've been regularly giving updates on the donations made through goodybank. You can find them in this thread, but you can skip straight to them with these links:
24 April | 1 May | 7 May | 15 May | 21 May
