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For community groups

Fundraising that runs in the background

No raffle, no bag packing, no sponsored anything. Your families shop with local businesses that have agreed never to charge more than their usual shop price, and a share of our fee comes to you every month.

Register your groupSee how the money works

How it works

You do three things, once

1

Claim your group

One person with authority to act for the group signs it up. A PTA chair, a club secretary, a churchwarden. It takes a few minutes.
2

Share your link

You get a link, a QR code and some wording you can paste into a newsletter or a WhatsApp group. Anyone who joins through it has your group set as their cause.
3

Watch it add up

Your page shows the running total. We pay it out by bank transfer every month, within ten working days of month end. Anything under £10 rolls forward.

The other half of it

You are not only raising funds. You are backing your own high street.

The independent shops in your town are having a hard time of it. Rent, energy, wages and card fees have all gone one way, margins are thin, and every year a bit more of the town’s spending goes to a chain or to a warehouse a hundred miles away. Pointing some of that money back down the high street is worth doing on its own, and your group gets paid for doing it.

The shop gets the customer

A family that would have added it to the supermarket trolley buys from the butcher, the baker or the deli instead. That trade does not show up in your fundraising total, but it is the half of this the shopkeepers care about, and it is why they will back your group in return.

And your families cannot lose on price

Every business signs up to never listing above its usual shop price, and most go lower because a standing weekly order is worth more than a passing one. So your supporters tend to save money as well as raise it, which is what keeps this going once the first flush of goodwill has worn off.

Be clear with your treasurer

What this money is, and what it is not

Getting this right matters more than making it sound generous, so here it is in the words your treasurer and your auditor will want.

It is a commercial fundraising payment

Your group’s share is paid under a written contract with us, out of the fee we charge the business. It is not a donation from us or from the shopper, and Gift Aid does not apply to it. Where your group is a charity, we act as a commercial participator under Part II of the Charities Act 1992, and the agreement you accept is the written agreement section 59 of that Act requires.

How your share is worked out

The group receives the group-share rate set for its town (in Reigate, 2% of the sale value) out of our fee on each qualifying purchase where you have chosen that group. Your price is the same either way.

Sales that are later refunded or charged back earn no share, and reverse against future accruals if they had already been counted.

You never see who bought what

Your group sees running totals only, never the identity or the purchases of any individual. Group membership is self-declared by the household and we do not verify it.

What you will not be asked to do

The point is that it costs you nothing, including effort

No volunteers on a stall

Nobody has to sell anything, collect anything or stand in a car park in November. Your families shop as they already do.

No money passing through you

You never handle a customer’s payment. We pay your group directly from our own fee income, monthly, by bank transfer.

No asking families for more

This is not another request for a fiver. Your supporters spend what they were going to spend anyway, at shops they already use, and never at more than those shops’ usual prices.

Who can take part

Not just schools

Schools are usually first through the door because they reach the most families at once. But any group with people behind it can raise money this way, and a town works best when several are doing it at once.

A household can back more than one group and split between them however they like, so a family can support their child’s school and their rugby club without choosing between them.

  • School PTAs and friends associations
  • Sports clubs: rugby, cricket, football, boxing, netball
  • Scouts, guides, cadets and youth groups
  • Churches and other places of worship
  • Community choirs, drama groups and bands
  • Anything else that holds a town together

Next step

Get your group in before the town opens

Groups that are signed up when a town launches do considerably better than ones that join later, because the first wave of households pick from whoever is already listed. Reigate is opening first.

Register your group