Scrooge Awards Christmas 2011
from the Charities Advisory Trust
This is the 10th annual Scrooge Award. Each year the Charities Advisory Trust surveys high street retailers, to see who is using charity to help boost sales but actually giving very little to charity. This year, in addition, we surveyed online personalised charity Christmas card companies.
Charity cards used to be an important way of earning money for charities. People bought charity cards to show their friends that they were caring, decent people. Realising that it was a profitable market, high street retailers decided to muscle in on the charity card market as a way to boost their sales. With no legislation to control the amount going to charity, companies can give as little as 2% to charity and still label the card as a charity card (EU regulations would not allow a meat pie with 2% meat, to be labelled as a meat pie, but cards can be labelled as charity cards with even less than 2% going to charity).
The Charities Advisory Trust has for 10 years been naming and shaming those who simply use the charity label as a marketing ploy and the findings from this year's Scrooge Award research (Note 1) are as follows:
• Years of campaigning by the Charities Advisory Trust has successfully pushed the charity donation to a minimum of 10% for many cards on the high street, while some such as John Lewis, Paperchase and Debenhams are giving more.
• 3 for 2 offers at Next, Marks and Spencer, WHSmith (and more are likely as the season advances) reduce the actual amount to charity. How appropriate is it to discount charity? Do you tell a hungry child in Africa they can't eat on every third day because someone in the UK wanted to save money?
• This year 41.6% of the cards surveyed were produced in China (Note 2). This makes the card cheaper to produce, but costs jobs in the UK. It is extraordinary that UK charities do not make any effort to see that cards are printed in the UK, thus protecting jobs and the environment.
• This year sees the continuing trend to offer fewer cards, with Harrods reducing their charity Christmas card range by 68% since 2008 and John Lewis by 54%.
• High street shops have moved towards more UK based causes such as Macmillan Cancer Support, Great Ormond Street and Barnardos, rather than the big international charities.
• The wide availability of charity cards on the High Street has undercut sales of cards by charities themselves (which give more to the charities) and are forcing them out of the market (for example Water Aid which no longer offers a range of cards but rather relies on licensing deals)
While the High Street seems to be giving more to charity this year sales of personalised charity cards sold on the internet show amounts as low as 1.1% to charity. We surveyed 40 online companies offering 'bespoke' cards with a charity element (Note 3).
• More than two thirds (67.5%) of the online card publishers surveyed give less than 5% to charity.
• Startlingly, over a quarter (27.5%) give less than 2% to charity.
• All in all only 22.5% give 10% or more to charity.
• It was virtually impossible to work out how much, as a percentage, went to charity, unless you had an A-level in arithmetic and a lot of spare time.
• Many publishers give a flat rate amount - 10p or 5p a card, but they had so many extras for printing logos, greetings, colour printing, etc that the total cost was high, and the percentage to charity very low.
• It was clear card publishers offered charity cards to help market their product. The word 'exploitation' comes to mind.
• Some, having lured you to their site, even offer a discount if you do not give to charity (http://www.greetingcards.co.uk) or take you to a range of non-charity cards (http://www.companychristmascards.co.uk).
We give our first annual 'Clear as Mud' award to Company Christmas Cards as they listed at the top of their card website page that "2011 Charity Cards out now!" yet some of the cards listed on the page gave no money to charity.
We are delighted this year to announce a special 'Reformed Sinner' award to Cards Galore. It has been the winner of the Scrooge Award for the past two years, but this year their charity cards gave a proper 10% to charity (except 6 designs which gave 7.5%). Thank you Card Galore: you have taken a big first step in changing the lives of people in need.
The Scrooge Award this year goes to CCA Occasions, an online company offering personalised Christmas cards. Despite offering 10p per card donation the cards can costs up to £9.35 each (including additional charges such as artwork, personalised envelopes and foil printing) resulting in a donation to charity of 1.1%. The maximum donation was still only 13.9%.
Not only retailers are greedy. Those who hosted charity shops are anxious to take over a profitable market e.g. St Martin in the Fields, having hosted Card Aid for over 20 years, decided "for purely commercial reasons" to run their own shops, taking 'charity' cards from commercial suppliers that gave as little as 6 or 8% to the charity named on the card, but keeping the retailer's share (as much as 50%) for themselves. Card Aid has had a shop at St Martin in the Fields for over 20 years, and built up sales of over £100,000 a year of which 10% was given as a donation to the church). The National Theatre and the BFI have followed the same course. They reckon they can make money for themselves, "after all we are a charity".
We were surprised that our survey showed charities did not use joined up thinking when choosing their cards. For charities which are campaigning against global warming why agree to have cards printed in China, and shipped round the world? Why when campaigning against poverty in the UK agree to have cards printed in China, costing probably 10 jobs in the rapidly shrinking UK printing industry? The survey has identified some, but not all of the culprits. We note that on cards sold to their supporters some charities are careful to omit the 'Printed in China' though it appears on similar cards from the same card manufacturer.
Dame Hilary Blume, founder of Card Aid, and a campaigner for a better deal for charities on Christmas cards comments "If you are going to exploit goodwill towards charity to boost your sales, at least be charitable. Commercially produced cards give little to charity, and undercut the charities' own cards. Buy Card Aid secure in the knowledge that 40% to 60% goes to charity after all costs"
We need stronger rules if the public is not going to become disillusioned about giving to charity. The Government and the Charity Commission have previously said they think it is up to the consumer to inform themselves. There's to be a review of the Charities Act starting in November. Perhaps they could include a requirement that for something to be sold in aid of charity at least 10% of the selling price actually goes to charity (at least for items up to £1,000).
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Notes to editors
For more information and for images of Christmas cards and access to the full report details contact James Dunn or Dame Hilary Blume at Charities Advisory Trust on:
e-mail: people@charitiesadvisorytrust.org.uk
phone: 020 7794 9835
Note 1. This was a snapshot survey undertaken in the first week of November 2011, within London.
Note 2. This percentage includes Special Editions who refused to provide accurate information as to the full extent to which they used China for the production of cards.
Note 3. This was a snapshot survey of 40 companies offering charity Christmas cards with over-printing, in the second week of September 2011. The research was undertaken by the Charities Advisory Trust.
When using this report please acknowledge the source, Scrooge Awards, 2011 Charities Advisory Trust.
UPDATE: After discussions with WHSmith they have told us that they give the full donation to charity even if the card pack is included in the 3 for 2 offer.
Click here for the 2011 Scrooge Award data