Edit Agency acquires Wood for Trees, & other snippets of agency & supplier news
Melanie May | 28 February 2023 | News
With Wood for Trees acquired by Edit Agency, here’s more on that, along with other news in brief from the agency and supplier world.
Edit Agency acquires Wood for Trees to strengthen charity proposition
Data, tech and media consultancy Edit Agency, part of The Salocin Group, has acquired the trade and assets of charity insight specialists Wood for Trees.
Wood for Trees will join existing Salocin Group brands Edit and Join the Dots, which provide intelligent data solutions, marketing technology, customer acquisition and retention strategies to both brands and charities.
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Wood for Trees’ solutions for the charity sector include its InsightHub for Charities, which provides detailed insights for organisations looking to boost supporter engagement and maximise their return on fundraising activities. Last November saw Wood for Trees win the Best Use of Apteco Software Award jointly with Teenage Cancer Trust, and Apteco Partner of the Year.
Nick Dixon, CEO of Edit Agency Ltd and founder of The Salocin Group commented:
“We are delighted to welcome the Wood for Trees clients and the talented employees which will create an even greater supporter engagement agency in the charity sector. Charities are a particular focus for us, especially with our B Corp certification, as we look to extend the number of purpose-orientated organisations we work with.
“Combining Wood for Trees’ data insights for the charity sector with Edit’s capabilities in CRM Strategy, data platforms and marketing technology and Join the Dots’ data-driven media planning and acquisition team, will help us optimise supporter connections for the charity sector. Together we will be serving over 50 charity clients.”
Jack Mason, CEO of Inc & Co the parent company of Wood for Trees said:
“We invested in the business for just over two years as part of our acquisition of a larger group. With Nick’s ambitious plans for The Salocin Group and Edit Agency, the synergies and strategic direction were obvious for us as investors to realise this investment.
“Edit Agency is an ideal home for the Wood for Trees employees and their fabulous clients. We wish the team every success.”
The Charity Shop Gift Card teams up with Clothing Collective
The Charity Shop Gift Card is partnering with Clothing Collective to support the growing number of people in need as the cost-of-living crisis deepens.
The Charity Shop Gift Card, developed in partnership with the Charity Retail Association, is a multi-retailer gift card that can be used exclusively in charity shops.
The partnership will see Clothing Collective fund gift cards to distribute to partner organisations to support people experiencing clothing poverty, utilising The Charity Shop Gift Card’s growing network of regional and national charity shops, including Marie Curie, YMCA, The Children’s Society, Shelter and Crisis.
Using The Charity Shop Gift Card’s redemption network, Clothing Collective distributes gift cards to organisations around the country including Trussell Trust, Centrepoint and Migrant Help.
BillyChip partners with Co-op
BillyChip is being introduced across all 250+ Central Co-op food stores this March, allowing customers to buy the chips to give to someone sleeping rough.
The chips are made from a biodegradable ceramic polymer and cost £2. This £2 goes straight to BillyChip who, through their foundation, help support other relevant local charities in the Society’s trading area.
A BillyChip can be redeemed for a hot or cold drink of the holder’s choice at any Central Co-op store. Two chips can be redeemed for a meal deal in-store as well, including a snack, main, and a drink.
Tokens will be available for purchase in stores from 27 March, marking the fifth anniversary of the passing of Billy Abernethy-Hope, the creator and namesake of BillyChip.
Tyl by NatWest raises over £500,000 through the Tyl Giveback Community Fund
Tyl by NatWest, in partnership with Pennies, has reached a new milestone, raising a cumulative total of over £500,000 since launching in 2019, to support national and local charitable initiatives across the UK through its Giveback Community Fund.
For every card transaction Tyl by NatWest merchants take, Tyl donates a portion of the revenue to the Giveback Community Fund.
The Giveback Community Fund supports over 40 charities and causes including Hospice UK, Macmillan Cancer Support and The Prince’s Trust. The fund also supports charities local to Tyl by NatWest customers such as Marie Curie in London, St Helena Hospice in Colchester, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust.
The Tyl Giveback Fund celebrated a milestone of £300k in Spring 2022 and has since raised an additional £200k. Tyl by NatWest donated a record £164,000 to local charities such as Cambridge Women’s Aid, Sea Change Sailing Trust, and The Knights Foundation in 2022 alone.
GivePenny and Fitbit partner to offer UK charities virtual fundraising challenge
GivePenny has partnered with Fitbit to launch a new virtual fundraising challenge for all UK charities. The initiative, called Fitbit Steps for Good, aims to motivate people to fundraise for their favourite charities by walking or running with their Fitbit devices.
Through Fitbit Steps for Good, supporters can set fitness goals and track their progress while raising funds for their chosen charity. The platform also offers various gamification features, social sharing tools, and creative donation methods to keep participants motivated and engaged.
As part of the initiative, GivePenny and Fitbit are offering a 20% discount on any Fitbit device to participants who raise more than £50 for any UK charity.
Law firm takes on Payit to collect employee donations for charity partners
International law firm CMS has signed up to technology from NatWest’s open banking payments solution Payit, to collect charity donations from employees for its charity partners using reusable link technology. The move is part of the firm’s wider social impact programme.
CMS is the first business to adopt the latest Payit feature, Reusable Links. This new feature allows payments to be collected from multiple accounts, via one link, without requiring card or bank account details from the donor.
This will provide CMS with an easy way to collect charity payments from employees for their selected charity partners. CMS has been provided with a reusable link for each charity they support. A reference for each charity is built into this link to simplify the administration process and help CMS distribute the raised funds to its various charity partners quicker.
Strava adds new challenge to raise funds for earthquake aid
The Earthquake Relief Challenge for Turkey & Syria is now live on the Strava platform.
The challenge is asking users to record 10 minutes of any activity type in one go to earn a badge (a Strava verification of completing the challenge) and to donate to the Just Giving Page if they are able to.
All donations will go to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The challenge has already garnered 7,307 participants with numbers still growing. Last year Strava organised the Ukraine Relief Challenge which rallied together 831,552 participants who were encouraged to complete a single activity of 5 kilometres – raising just over US$460,000 (around £382,000).
Falanx Cyber and Smartdesc partner to help protect UK charities from cyber threat
Falanx Cyber, a Reading based managed services security provider (MSSP), has teamed up with Smartdesc, a Third Sector IT infrastructure service providers, to help UK charities increase their ability to to withstand cyber attacks.
Between them, Falanx Cyber and Smartdesc currently work with more than 80 charities in the UK and are looking to expand their offering. The partnership will make it possible to support more charities helping them to identify areas of cyber risk and implement strategy and services to mitigate against threats as cyber risk increases year on year.
Smartdesc works with large charities including Mind, Shelter, YMCA and Terrence Higgins to improve cyber security, cut costs and optimise hybrid working via Microsoft 365 and Teams. One of Smartdesc’s key cyber defence offerings is the Virtual Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) service. This is an outsourced security expert (or team of security experts) that guide and direct cybersecurity priorities, typically working alongside existing internal IT teams on a part-time basis.
Falanx Cyber’s core offering for charities is Managed Detection and Response (MDR), a service that combines security-cleared analysts working from its 24/7/365 security operations centre (SOC) and specialist tools to monitor an entire IT estate for anomalies, seeking out and responding to cyber threats in real-time.
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.