We know charity shops are more than a shop – Let’s prove it!

In October of last year we published a ground breaking report on the Social Return on Investment provide by charity shops, which proved beyond a doubt that charity shops offer a huge amount more to their communities than simply providing income for their parent charities. Launched at a reception in the House of Commons in the presence of the Minister for charities, the report identified an amazing positive impact on wellbeing valued at £75.3 billion across the UK’s 10,200 charity shops.

At the same time we launched an unique toolkit, enabling our members to calculate the social return of their own shop chains, groups of shops, or even individual stores. This amazing product has been used many times by our members who are keen to promote the incredible value of charity shops over and above the cash provided to parent charities. Recently, two such charities have produced excellent case studies and have agreed to share them with the rest of membership in case anyone would like to do something similar.

Isabel Hospice identified £83,149,192 of social value and a return of £11.76 – i.e., for every pound invested in their shops, £11.76 of social value is generated. They concluded: “In our preparation for, and through the use of the CRA’s calculator, we have been able to put a tangible figure against what we already believed – that the positive impact our shops have in our community is vital to all our stakeholders.”
📖 Read the full report

The Kirkwood – a hospice in Yorkshire – identified a total of over £118,000,000 of social value generated by their shop network. They concluded: “In our preparation for and through the use of the CRA’s calculator, we have learned our retail shops are far more than a shop. This report highlights this. Our shops create a safe and caring environment for customers, donors, and volunteers.”
📖 Read the full report

As well as the calculator itself, the toolkit has a series of helpful templates designed to make putting together these kinds of reports as simple and quick as possible. There can be no better way of proving the huge value that charity shop networks provide to their customers, donors, staff and volunteers.

Go for it!

10/05/2024 09:53