UK areas where support agencies are engaged with the Gift Card

13/01/2022 14:25

Interest from Local Authorities and support agencies is gathering pace and getting a very positive response. The Charity Shop Gift Card team would welcome interest with charity retailers in any of the following regions:

Warrington: Work is underway with Warrington Borough Council to enable them to distribute The Charity Shop Gift Card as part of their local welfare assistance toolkit and they would like to start providing the card to service users as soon as possible.

Essex: Southend-on-Sea Borough Council are keen to distribute The Charity Shop Gift Card to support service users initially within their homelessness and housing provision.

Norfolk: Norfolk County Council contacted us about the scheme and are very enthusiastic about using The Charity Shop Gift Card as part of their welfare provision across the county, and would like to be one of the first Local Authorities to adopt the initiative.

Scotland: Our pilot in Renfrewshire will soon be commencing with the support of Engage Renfrewshire, Renfrewshire County Council and several other support agencies who are in the process of applying for grant funding to be loaded onto cards to be spent in the region. This pilot has also drawn attention from Circular Communities Scotland who are very supportive of the initiative and would love to spread the word to its members and other Local Authorities, once more charity shops throughout Scotland are on board.

Kent: We will soon be starting a pilot in Kent with a national charity that supports migrants and asylum seekers, with a view to rolling it out across the UK as more retailers join. We will be meeting with Kent Housing Group next month and they will be keen to know which charity shops can accept the card in their region.

We also have interest from councils and support agencies in York, Devon, West Midlands, Portsmouth, Nottinghamshire, Berkshire, Tameside, Cumbria and the North East so the Gift Card team would welcome interest from charity shops in those areas as it is always important to them that service users spending the card will have a decent redemption network within the region.

Once charity shops commit to The Charity Shop Gift Card we use this as impetus to start contacting councils and support agencies in the area so even if shops are not in the regions listed, please get in touch. Contact Sarah Cox at sarah.cox@thecharityshopgiftcard.co.uk

If you want to know more about The Charity Shop Gift Card, how it works, how you can join the scheme etc, there is a free webinar on Wednesday 19 January, 10.30 – 11.30am – Book here