Vintage Cash Cow for Charities, the free service which helps charities turn their unsold and non-saleable donations into income for their cause, has achieved a new milestone of registering over 2,000 shops to use its innovative fundraising service.
By providing members of the third sector with a hassle-free retail solution to unlock extra income with no overhead costs, more money can be raised for the end cause. In addition to generating additional funds, sending stock to Vintage Cash Cow also helps to free up space in preparation for the anticipated rush in donations once lockdown lifts. NCVO expects the demand for charity’s services to grow by 50% just in April, so preparing for this situation before it occurs creates an advantage for the operational chain.
Garry Wilkinson, head of Charity Partnerships at Vintage Cash Cow, says, “It has been some time coming and impacted, of course, by lockdown of the charity shops for a significant part of 2020. However, the great news is that we now have over 2,000 charity shops registered to use our free service and we are looking forward to working with them once again when shops reopen. We also have several trials ready to launch with national charities in the forthcoming months. I feel confident that, before too long, we will be celebrating 3,000 shops and even more, as charities recognise the need to replace as much lost income as possible through easy, accessible means.”
British Red Cross is one of the charities recently signed up to trial the service once its shops reopen.
Alexandra Ehlen, British Red Cross stock generation and gift aid manager, adds, “We have recently decided to start using Vintage Cash Cow as another way to raise money from items that cannot be sold in British Red Cross shops, helping to further reduce the number of broken pre-loved items that may otherwise end up in landfill. Money raised will support our life-changing work to support people in crisis. Vintage Cash Cow has been really informative and supportive in getting our shops set-up ready to start sending in boxes of items once they have reopened. We are looking forward to working with them on this initiative.”
Since Vintage Cash Cow launched its charity shops’ service, it has bought over £200,000 of unsold and non-saleable donations; items that often would have ended up being thrown away, or, in the case of non-precious metal, recycled for next to nothing. To help charities earn more from their non-precious metals, Vintage Cash Cow launched its metal price promise
Since Vintage Cash Cow launched its charity shops’ service, it has bought over £200,000 of unsold and non-saleable donations; items that often would have ended up being thrown away, or, in the case of non-precious metal, recycled for next to nothing. To help charities earn more from their non-precious metals, Vintage Cash Cow launched its metal price promise, which pays a guaranteed minimum of £1per kilo for non-precious scrap metals such as brass, pewter, copper and silver plate. Other items that the service purchases include gold and silver, all types of jewellery, watches and small clocks, cameras and accessories, pe-decimal and foreign currency, medals, militaria, toys, and more.
Charity shops wanting to find out more can fill in a simple contact form on the website and they will receive a phone call from Garry to answer any questions about the service. Shops receive a welcome email and have a charity pack posted out to them, which includes a product brochure, posters and flash-cards, showing which items can and can’t be accepted. When the first box is ready, Vintage Cash Cow’s customer service team will organise a free collection of the items. Each box can weigh up to 30kg. The service works regardless of a charity’s size, whether it has one shop or 700 shops. As well as using the service as an outlet for their unsold and non-saleable donations, shop managers can also confidently promote the donation of more items they know they wouldn’t usually sell in the shop, safe in the knowledge that they have a reliable outlet through which to sell them.
For more details and to register, please visit www.vintagecashcow.co.uk/fundraising.