Sue Ryder Care's shops hit £3million in Gift Aid

26 June 2009

Health and social care charity Sue Ryder Care has raised over £3million in gift aid since the inception of its groundbreaking scheme to link gift aid to donations of goods brought into its shops, which began 3 years ago.

The charity has over 220,000 gift aid Donors, who regularly take any unwanted goods into their local Sue Ryder Care shops and gift aid their donations, and the charity signs up around 2,400 new donors each week.

Once a certain amount of a gift aid donors goods have been sold, Sue Ryder Care writes to them to say how much their unwanted items have raised, up to four times a year, and donors have told the charity that seeing how much their donations have helped has prompted them to look out more unwanted items to take in, so repeat donations have risen dramatically.

If you haven’t already signed up then you can online, or you can pick up a leaflet in your local Sue Ryder Care shop where their team of dedicated staff and volunteers will be happy to talk you through the process.

Alan Hodges, Director of Retail, Sue Ryder Care said “Donors have thanked us for our great service, and they are genuinely pleased to know that their act of giving us the best of what they no longer use benefits others. We are obviously delighted - to secure an additional £3million from the scheme over a three year period is staggering and will enable the charity to provide many more hours of quality care for people living with end of life and long-term conditions including; Cancer, Stroke, Brain Injury, Multiple Sclerosis, Dementia, Huntington’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease and Motor Neurone Disease. We have ambitious plans for growth, so the charity needs to use innovative ways to raise as many funds as possible. This scheme is revolutionising the way charity shops operate.”

Alan continued: “One of the additional benefits has been more contact with our donors. Staff are meeting with them face to face in store, we then write to donors to tell them how much their donation has raised and, crucially, we can engage them in finding out more about what Sue Ryder Care does.”

By offering its donors the opportunity to gift aid the 1.4 million bags they hand over to its shops each year, the charity has helped develop an innovative way to add 28% to the value of every donation, be it a dress, ornament or book.

All quality donations help the charity, so people are being encouraged to take unwanted goods into their local shop and to sign up to gift aid so that an extra 28% can be reclaimed.

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Sue Ryder Care

We care for people with end of life and long term conditions: Cancer, Stroke, Brain Injury, Multiple Sclerosis, Dementia, Huntington's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, and Motor Neurone Disease