Two charities benefit from new alternative to 192
Howard Lake | 18 November 2003 | News
Share Communications is one of the companies offering a directory assistance service following the opening up of BT’s 192 service, but it aims to be different by donating 5p per call made to Barnardo’s and the British Red Cross.
Dedicated directory assistance provider Share Communications aims to stand out from other directory assistance companies by donating 5p per call to be shared between two national charities.
The company describes itself as a nimble start-up, and not “a huge monolithic company burdened with billions of debt to support and bureaucracy to overcome.” It hopes that callers to its number 118 499 will experience a “genuine feelgood factor about using the service” that will counter the millions of pounds spent by other rival companies on promoting their services.
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Barnardo’s Web site clearly featured the service in their list of methods of supporting the charity, but we could not find a similar listing on the British Red Cross site.
In fact, as UK Fundraising reported in December 2002, at least one other directory assistance company is donating a percentage of call charges to charity. However, Onetel is giving just 1p per call to Samaritans, and is only offering to make the charity donation for one year until 31 December 2003.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.