Alison Hutchinson

……who has pioneered a whole new approach to charitable giving as Co-founder and CEO at Pennies since 2009. The original idea came from a few people who were worried that the growth in digital payments, in the real world and online, would lead to big losses for charities that had traditionally shaken buckets and collected loose change. At the time, surveys confirmed that the UK’s preferred way to give was “dropping coins in a charity box” – it was easy, affordable and made people feel good.  The solution envisaged was to digitise the activity, reflecting moves towards cashless and digital channel shopping. A new category, “micro-donations”, was born.  The pioneering has involved some hard yards though. Two early decisions gave challenges in the short term but have proven to be correct.  One was for Pennies to become a charity, so the organisation doesn’t seek to make any money but is growing a legacy of feel-good giving.  The other was a decision to be independent and to apply some strong principles to make the activity sustainable, so wherever consumers shop and pay for goods and services via whatever channel, they will be given the option to donate small change, literally pennies, and it will always be their choice to opt in. This has meant working with many payment and technology providers, supporting many customer journeys, proving Pennies can operate in any consumer shopping or buying sector, and allowing any approved charity to benefit if nominated by the retail partner. For example The Entertainer supports children’s charities and Medivet supports the Wilderness Foundation.  And on top of all of that, Pennies had to secure its own philanthropic funding to make it all a reality – much more challenging when another principle is to not detract from the money being raised for charities! So lots of learning along the way, many battles around 'this will never work' ….yet it is working incredibly well. £60m raised for more than 1,000 charities across 150 retailers, with momentum still growing as the idea becomes truly established.