New online travel affiliate programme
Howard Lake | 23 January 2004 | News
Travel for Charity is a new online travel and holiday site for consumers and businesses that will pay 75% of its commissions to participating charities.
Travel for Charity has been set up by Stuart Miller, a Liverpool-based father whose son was diagnosed with leukaemia and who set out to raise funds in respose. The system is now open to all charities to benefit from.
Stuart teamed up with Holiday Express and MHR Business Travel, both ABTA bonded agents, to get the idea off the ground.
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Individuals and businesses who book travel via the travel-for-charity.co.uk Web site or their travel partners’ reservations departments can choose a charity to donate to because 75 per cent of the money earned through the project goes to the good causes chosen by travellers.
The remaining 25% is used to cover administrative and technical expenses, although Stuart hopes to secure sponsorship to free up this amount for charities.
Stuart chose to base his fundraising activity on travel because he had worked in the sector for many years. “Having worked in the travel industry for most of my life, I thought of a way for people to support charities without having to put their hands deeper into their pockets – essentially pledging cash to their favourite good causes when they book their holiday or corporate travel with us,” he said.
“The commission earned from our travel partners goes to good causes instead.” Charities already partnering with Travel for Charity include Barnardo’s, Help The
Hospices, Alder Hey, National
Association of Children With Cancer
Parents’ Organisation, Claire House, Zoe’s Place, Lasers for Life, and other smaller charities in the Merseyside area.
Stuart is encouraging other charities to partner with the site and earn income from all their supporters who book travel via the site.
Payments are made monthly in arrears. What can a charity expect to earn? Stuart explains: “say an average holiday spend is £1,000. Of this our partners Holiday Express and MHR Travel earn 10%, of which we earn 30%, giving an income of £30; 75% of this goes to the specified charity.” So an average holiday booking should generate £22.50 for a charity.
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.