#FinalFiver: another chance to fundraise from £5 notes
Howard Lake | 26 January 2017 | News
Remember the #firstfiver campaign that encouraged the public to donate the first new polymer £5 they received to a charity of their choice? Now there is a complementary opportunity to repeat that – by asking the public to donate their last old £5 note to their favourite charity.
Old £5 notes will cease to be legal tender on Friday 5 May 2017. So the Bank of England is inviting us to use them before then. And what better way than to donate them to charity?
As with any banknote withdrawal, that date isn’t quite finite. You will still be able to exchange old fivers at face value in perpetuity – but only by presenting them to the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street in the City of London.
Not surprisingly, John Thompson, who came up with the idea of the #fivergiver campaign – which CAF estimates raised £12.5 million! – saw this coming and is hoping that the public will be inspired to make the same gesture with the last of their old fivers.
His suggested campaign hashtag is #FinalFiver.
#MayTheFourth be with your #FinalFiver you know what to do good people https://t.co/2adGELfidB
— John Thompson, aka Johnny Five (@JTCHANGINGBIZ) January 18, 2017
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New tenner to come
These opportunities are not going away. This summer will see the introduction of the first polymer £10 note, featuring a picture (probably not a likeness, incidentally) of Jane Austen. And that will be followed by the £20 polymer note.
You can bet that John Thompson – or Johnny Five, as his Twitter handle now reads – is ready to spring into action with those opportunities too.
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.