Time for a charity 2013 update! If there's one thing that's clear, it's that our members are passionate about our values. We try to do our bit to make this world a slightly better place, and we're commited to getting involved in the charities or causes our community want us too.
Previously giffgaffers have chosen donations at Payback time to go to Cancer Research UK (June 2010), Macmillian Cancer Support (Dec 2010 + Dec 2011), Help the Heroes (June 2011), Ummah Welfare Trust (June 2012), Teenage Cancer Trust and Air Ambulance Association (Dec 2012) and this payback period was dedicated to Great Ormond Street Hospital and Water Aid.
This payback period saw 7384 members donating £12,200 of their payback through their mygiffgaff dashboards, with the top three donators giving a fantastic £187, £119 and £94.10.
On top of this, due to the Idea (something else we're all about), Launch a giffgaff.... by fiendishlyclever we created justgiving pages, so those of you taking your payback as credit or paypal can still donate if you wish. With 120 donations, we quadrupled the £90 raised last December, raising an extra £160 for Water Aid and £200 for Great Ormond Street hospital (at time of writing, though these pages will stay open til December 2013, you can continue to donate here)
However Charity doesn't stop at Payback, in the last six months alone we've run 9 events through giffgaff for good.
In January we ran a charity drive for the British Heart Foundation. Then later in February, our members helped us give £40 to BHF when 40 lovely poems were posted in the 'Cupid's Quills' thread.
The response from members in March, on comic relief was amazing. We saw 1,691 members had donated £19,910 credit through texting 70010 as well as a further 920 calls being made.
April we announced our participation in the British 10k London Run, asking members to get involved too. We had responses from some brave staff and members who were interested in running with us next month, and as it stands now we have 24 runners consisting of giffgaff staff and giffgaff members. We also ran a piece on recycling your old phones. We believe in being environmentally friendly and minimising waste, so as well as promoting several schemes where you can do this, we will also accept your old phones and recycle them for you!
Last month Spencer kicked off the beautiful Random Acts of Kindess, It involves encouraging others to do the little things that can make somebody's day. It might be a stranger helping to carry your luggage up the stairs on the underground, a compliment from a colleague or the person ahead of you in the queue paying for your coffee. The sort of things that make you feel good when you see it happen. Original inspired by the Contribute thread started by members thewordsmith and trudiw.
Join in the do-gooding here...
MIND was our third top charity in June just missing out on being part of our Payback run. Thanks to our members consistent support, we're dedicating the new competition 'ChariTEE' to raising money for the Mental Health Charity. This is super easy to enter even if you aren't a dab hand at design, find out more here. You can submit creations, vote for the winning design, help promote or eventually buy a T-shirt to help.
/phew, wonder what the next six months will bring?