A load of hot air? Follow charity shops' lead
Howard Lake | 20 March 2008 | Blogs
Dominic Murphy writes in today’s Guardian lamenting the number of shops that leave their doors open, throughout the day, with their heating on full blast. In Shut that door! he says that “estimates suggest around £300m annually is wasted by shops because their doors are left open – many could slash their energy bills by 20-25% if they closed them”.
I too find them an ‘eco-irritant’, assuming that they’ve probably got better things to do than heat the great outdoors. If they’ve got money to burn perhaps they could apply it to reducing prices or paying their staff or suppliers a little more. It seems retailers believe that “people are less likely to come into the store if the door is closed.”
Yet it crossed my mind that I don’t ever recall a charity shop adopting this open-door policy. You can imagine I’m a little biased in favour of the charity sector, but can you think of a charity shop that operates all day with its doors open, heat escaping into the great outdoors?
No, I didn’t think so.
Perhaps it’s because charity trading operations are truly focused on the bottom line. Blowing hot air outdoors is just not an option for them. Maybe it’s the large number of older volunteers in charity shops for many of whom waste is not only daft but almost unthinkable. Or maybe it’s plain old common sense.
So, when you hear someone complaining that charities should adopt more businesslike habits, spare a thought for the humble charity shop. Somehow these institutions manage to survive and prosper by trusting shoppers to be able to push open a closed door when they want to, and by choosing to heat only their own premises and no further. Radical stuff!
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.