Great Fundraising Organizations, by Alan Clayton. Book cover.

12 ways charities are fundraising #PoundForPound with the new £1 coin

Howard Lake

Howard Lake | 28 March 2017 | News

The new design £1 coin was introduced in the UK today. Already many charities are using the #PoundforPound hashtag to invite supporters and the public to donate the new pound or indeed the ‘old’ pound.
It is a significant opportunity. The Institute of Fundraising thinks it isn’t small change – it claims that the switchover could raise up to £21 million for charity!
Here are some of the different approaches taken to this unusual fundraising opportunity.
 

1. Putting a value on (28) £1 coins

Macmillan Cancer describes the new coin by numbers. And points out that 28 of these coins could pay for one hour of care from a Macmillan nurse.
 


Thames Hospice have done something similar:


 

2. Promote Gift Aid and make your £1 go further

Rhythmix Music have used the new £1 design to update the popular image depicting how much extra a £1 is worth if given using Gift Aid.


 

3. Donate the old coins too while you can

St Joseph’s Hospice is inviting the public to donate the ‘old’ £1 coins, before they are withdrawn from circulation. They are just as valuable of course.

 

4. Donate new and old £1 coins

St Luke’s Hospice is covering its bets, asking for donations of the new and old £1 coin.


 

5. Make the most of the transition

Not all retailers can accept the new £1 coin in all their devices. That’s a lot of people with an extra £1 coin in their hands which they could donate to charity.


 

6. Make the most of an existing £1 appeal

If you’ve got a £1-focused appeal running, you’ve timed it well. Human Appeal are linking the new £1 coin to their Purple Pound scheme.


 

7. Corporate fundraising

There are plenty of shops that have the word ‘Pound’ in their name or focus on selling items at £1. How they can be involved in this opportunity?


 

8. Picture this

We might know what the new £1 coin looks like, but what does its impact on your charity look like?
Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust didn’t have access to the new coins yesterday when it posted this, but it’s a good image, encouraging you to donate perhaps not £1 but many.

9. Text £1

It’s 2017 and cash isn’t the king or queen it once was. So St Margaret’s Hospice is encouraging us to donate £1 by text. They’ll never know if it was a new or old £1, but they won’t mind.
 


 

10. Moving pictures

Given there are 160,000+ charities in England and Wales alone who could be asking for donations of the new £1 coin, how might your charity stand out? A video is certainly a good choice, so here is Action for Children’s.


And here is NSPCC’s:


 

11. Save your £1?

There could be an argument for saving your 2017 new £1 coin, given that coin collectors might, in future years, pay more for one. Certainly charities overseas have noticed the new currency.
That said, a £1 donated now to a charity is probably a better investment.


 

12. Update your collecting boxes

If you have collecting boxes, flag up the opportunities of the new £1 coin. The Royal Pavilion and Brighton Museums are doing just that.


 

Bonus

Can you introduce humour into promoting the new pound coin? Here’s HM Treasury’s attempt, featuring its resident cat Gladstone, apparently.


 
 

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Howard Lake

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.

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