Great Fundraising Organizations, by Alan Clayton. Book cover.

Black Friday round up: alternatives supporting charities & good causes

Melanie May

Melanie May | 25 November 2020 | News

This Friday is Black Friday – the start of the year’s big shopping weekend, which ends with Cyber Monday, neatly followed by Giving Tuesday. Not all companies are going big on the discounts though – a growing number are supporting charities and good causes. Here’s a round up of some of them.
 


Cycling clothing brand Rapha is not holding a Black Friday sale but asking people to join the Rapha Foundation’s riding challenge to ride one million kilometres and help it donate 1,000 bikes to those who need them. The challenge will take place on Friday, 27 November and will be hosted on Strava. People are asked to sign up to the challenge to ensure their kilometres are added to the global total. For every 1,000km covered, Rapha will donate a bicycle to World Bicycle Relief. It will donate £120,000 in total: enough to provide 1,000 bicycles.
 


The House of Baukjen is donating all profits from its Baukjen and Isabella Oliver brands from Black Friday through to Cyber Monday to charity. Centrepoint, the Trussell Trust, Papyrus and the Princes Trust will each benefit from one day of sales from both the Baukjen and Isabella Oliver websites.


Sustainable footwear company AllBirds will raise its prices on Black Friday, increasing all prices across its website by £1. Each extra dollar, along with another dollar matched by the company, will be donated to Fridays For Future.
 
https://twitter.com/LebrusanStudio/status/1328322103028879360
Instead of offering a discount over the sale weekend, Brighton- and London-based jewellery brand Lebrusan Studio is raising money for The Water Project, a charity that focuses on providing clean water in sub-Saharan Africa and to which Lebrusan Studio has donated since 2015. For every jewel sold between 25 November and 1 December, the jeweller will donate 20% of proceeds.
 
https://twitter.com/Belstaff/status/1330929712214978563
British heritage brand Belstaff will donate 10% of all full-price sales over the Black Friday weekend to The Big Issue Foundation. Earlier in the year, its spring promotion of buy-one-give-one saw Belstaff give 350 jackets to Big Issue vendors across the UK. It also nominated the charity to receive its parent company’s Community Fund, with a donation of £10,000 pounds made in June.
 


ACAI Outdoorwear is supporting Women in Sport and making Black Friday Bright. During their Bright Friday weekend, they will be working together to help empower women to spend time outdoors, and are asking people to help flood social media with positivity and colour by pulling on their brightest piece of clothing, getting outdoors, sharing a selfie with the hashtag #BrightFriday and making a donation.  ACAI Outdoorwear will also be pledging 10% of all sales made over the four-day weekend starting on Bright Friday to Women in Sport.
 


Great Northern Larder is donating 20% of every order placed on its site between now and Black Friday to Dundalk Simon Community.
 


BeYou, the natural feminine care brand will be donating all profits made from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, to the Sakhi Project, an initiative which focuses on educating women and men on the importance of menstrual health in local Indian communities.
 


Sea & Stream will be donating 5% of its sales over the weekend to two organisations – The Rivers Trust, and FareShare.
 


Inov-8 is promising to donate 5% of all Black Friday sales towards planting trees. The Lake District based brand, which specialises in running, hiking and fitness gear, has teamed up with Cumbria Wildlife Trust. The money donated will be spent on the trust’s carbon reduction projects, which include planting trees and restoring peatbogs.
 
https://twitter.com/RointeUK/status/1330786945325260803
Rointe UK will plant a tree for every order placed over the weekend.
 


Coral Eyewear, which makes its products from recycled plastic and rescued fishing nets, is donating £10 from frames sales to #2MinuteBeachClean in the run up to the weekend, and on Black Friday, it will be using its platform to talk about Green Friday and support brands who are also reducing their environmental impact.
 
https://twitter.com/LOCCITANE_UK/status/1331281486813642753
L’Occitane is offering 20% off all online purchases and has also teamed up with PUR Projet, which works with companies to regenerate ecosystems. £1 from every hand cream sold over the Black Friday weekend will be donated to the cause, to help raise funds for its agroforestry tree planting initiative in the UK.
 


Simply Skin is donating 10% of profits from all purchases to NHS Charities Together, and making a donation itself.
 


Ribble Rivers Trust is encouraging people to ignore Black Friday, and spend some time outdoors, enjoying the area through activities including river walks and geocaching.
 


A number of charities are reminding people to shop through AmazonSmile and Easyfundraising, and raise donations for them that way, including Cornwall Hospice.
 


Other charities, such as the Nicola Corry Support Foundation, are encouraging people to sign up to The Giving Machine.
 


With its high street shops in England temporarily closed, BHF is calling on the nation to support it by donating any goods they are replacing in the Black Friday sales, via its freepost donation service.
 


Ocean Bottle is releasing a pledge for people to commit to conscious consumption. The brand will also not be advertising, and will be donating 100% of profits from the Blue Friday weekend to The Wave Project.
Every sale made over the weekend will have to agree to at least one term:

 


ChattyFeet is donating 20% of product sales generated via its website on Black Friday to charity, an initiative it has carried out since 2015. This year it is supporting Crisis, to whom it also donated 2,000 pairs of socks earlier this  year as the country entered lockdown. The initiative covers all the fun designs on its website.
 
Main image: Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

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Melanie May

About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.

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