Youth Music use the power of music to touch the lives of more than 150,000 young people through projects that they develop and fund. Many of the young people they work with are from severely disadvantaged backgrounds, so music making projects act as a life-line and a spring board to a brighter future.

One of the projects that is being supported through Pennies donations is Musical Mums, an initiative that works with teenage mothers. The weekly sessions offer the mothers and their children the opportunity to bond in a way that is otherwise unavailable in their day-to-day lives, learning together in a fun environment, gaining new skills and confidence and making new friends.

One such mother is Carly* who first attended the project with her son, when she was almost 17. A teenage resident in one of the more socially deprived wards in Harrogate, Carly engaged with the project well and was one of the more active participants. She identified the sessions as a positive aspect of getting used to becoming a mum at a young age. She also engaged well with the other participants and had a confident and sociable outlook.

However, when her first son was 1 year old Carly became pregnant again. During this time, she stopped coming to Musical Mum sessions while she juggled home life, a young child and a twin-pregnancy.

Carly’s twins were born premature, introducing a range of complications into the young mother’s life. However as soon as she could be out and about with the twins she returned to Musical Mums with all three sons, showing a great deal of confidence, and became a key participant in the project once again.

Carly’s return to the programme after her second pregnancy illustrates the positive impact Musical Mums has on young mothers, providing a time and environment in which mothers and babies are able to bond and develop through music and play, whilst building up a vital social support network.

Carly’s story is far from unique and as charity budgets continue to be stretched your pennies become increasingly important to enable our recipient charities to continue this great work. Thanks to all who have donated so far, pennies really can make a difference.

*Names have been changed

Domino’s nominated charities are Special Olympics Great Britain (who benefit from 75% of the money raised in Great Britain) and Northern Ireland Children’s Hospice (who receive 75% of donations made in Northern Ireland). The remaining 25% is shared amongst other UK charities, including Shelter, Youth Music and Carers UK.

Whilst until recently Domino’s has been leading the charge, other retailers are catching up as the Pennies movement grows and more join in: latest figures show that our other retailers are now accounting for more than 50% of donations made!

We’re constantly overwhelmed by the generosity of our retailers’ customers and would like to say a million thank-yous to all those who have donated. As you can see these pennies really do add up, providing much needed funds for charity and ultimately making a huge difference to people’s lives.

A few highlights of media coverage:
ThirdSector
Eat Out

Domino’s customers have shown that they are all heart by rounding up the price of their orders, a cool one million times, and donating their ‘spare change’ to charity. Domino’s Pizza joined forces with The Pennies Foundation, the creators of the micro-donation scheme Pennies, the electronic charity box in November 2010 and since then customers have raised over £230,000 for UK charities.

Domino’s nominated charity, Special Olympics Great Britain, benefits from 75% of the money raised in Great Britain, while the Northern Ireland Children’s Hospice receives 75% of the money raised in Northern Ireland.  The remaining 25% is shared amongst other UK charities, including Shelter, Together for Short Lives and NSPCC.

Pennies, the electronic charity box, is designed to make giving to charity easy, quick and affordable.  With one touch of a button shoppers can choose to round up their payment to the nearest pound when they pay by debit card, credit card or electronically.  To date the most common amount donated by Domino’s customers has been 1p, demonstrating how quickly those pennies add up.

Lance Batchelor, CEO of Domino’s Pizza said: “We are delighted that the Pennies scheme has been so well received by our customers.  It is fantastic news to hear that we have received one million donations and that so many charities will benefit from our customers’ generosity.  In these times of economic hardship it is heart warming to know that people are still happy to share what they have.  We are very proud and grateful to our customers.”

Karen Wallin, CEO for Special Olympics Great Britain said: “We are thrilled with the contribution we have been given.  So far, we have received £175,000 and our heartfelt thanks go to everyone who has donated.  The money will go towards many local and national projects and assist our athletes in their own personal development.  Pennies is such a brilliant idea – it makes it so simple for people to make a donation.

Alison Hutchinson, CEO for The Pennies Foundation said:  “We’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of Domino’s customers, a million thank-yous to all those who have donated. These pennies from Domino’s customers really do add up, providing much needed funds for charity and ultimately making a huge difference to people’s lives.”

120,800 donations were received in January, raising £31,000 and bringing our total number of donations to well over 1.6 million.

We’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who has joined in with the movement so far. Your pennies are helping to raise vital funds for our recipient charities.

With new retailers coming on board over the next few months, we’re looking forward to seeing more of your donations coming through and increasing the total amount of money raised to even bigger figures.

The majority of the money raised by The Entertainer is shared equally between four children’s hospitals: Liverpool’s Alder Hey Imagine Appeal; Birmingham Children’s Hospital; Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal which fundraises for Bristol Children’s Hospital; and Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity. The remainder will be divided between ten other registered charities covering a range of causes including the elderly, cancer support and arts & education.

The Entertainer was the first high street shop to enable the micro-donation scheme. The generosity of The Entertainer customers is clear with nearly half of those who could donate in December choosing to. Managing Director, Gary Grant,said: “People are inclined to be generous, and we have provided this very simple option for them to easily donate their small change. It has been amazing to see how those micro-donations add up to make a difference. Our traditional charity boxes would generate less than £2000 a year so it has been tremendous to see the donations come in so quickly and easily with the electronic charity box.”

The Entertainer is one of the largest retailers of toys in the UK with 65 stores across the nation and plans to open a further 12 in 2012. Owners Gary and Catherine Grant’s experience in buying and selling toys since 1981 is key to the on-going growth of the company, which enjoyed a 28% overall increase in sales compared to Christmas 2010.

Sarah-Jane Marsh. Chief Executive Officer, of Birmingham Children’s Hospital said: “Thank you to every single customer from the Entertainer who uses this fantastic method of giving to worthy charities. As a children’s hospital caring for some of the sickest, and most complex patients from all over the country, it is wonderful to have the generosity of the general public to help us make even more of a difference to their young lives. It just proves that even by giving a little, you can achieve so much.”

Alison Hutchinson, CEO of The Pennies Foundation, which created Pennies said: “We have always known that pennies are powerful, but we’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of The Entertainer’s customers. More than from 350,000 individual donations have been made in such a short period of time, demonstrating how quickly those pennies can add up. We are so pleased that The Entertainer’s customers have embraced micro-donations and are making a real difference to sick children’s lives. ”

The remaining quarter of The Entertainer customer donations have been shared between ten other UK charities supporting other causes that the public care about like cancer support, disadvantaged young people and homelessness.

Pennies is available with seven other retailers including Domino’s Pizza and Travelodge, as well as in Zizzi restaurants. So far more than 1.5 consumer donations have been received through Pennies, raising over £380,000 for a total of 27 UK charities showing how pennies really do add up to make a meaningful difference.

Were you one of the 68,799 people who donated their electronic change in the week leading up to Christmas? If so, you helped to raise nearly £18,000 in just a few days. More than half of that came from customers shopping at The Entertainer, the first retailer to introduce Pennies at high street shop tills. Customers at Zizzi restaurants were also particularly generous in the run up to Christmas.

The busy Christmas shopping season may be over but we’re working hard to get more retailers on board so you can keep donating your pennies throughout 2012!

Looking ahead to next year, we believe 2012 is the year when micro-donations could go mainstream and we’ll be working hard to make it happen. We’ve already got more exciting announcements lined up for the new year that we’ll be sharing with you as soon as we can.

In the meantime we’d like to thank all our friends for your help and support; we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Here at Pennies, we are working to help many charities boost their funds through generating a new revenue stream that consumers are already getting behind. We make it easy for UK consumers to give pennies when using a debit or credit card when shopping either in stores, online or even using their mobile phone. Everyone can donate just a few pennies if they chose to do so and using technology makes it a private, hassle free option. We know that even tiny donations are valuable as they add up to making a meaningful difference to those who are in need of help.

The report also features Steve Bridger, Director of Spring and Beyond Profit Partner at Visceral Business, who talks about the fundraising potential of the web and mobile. We totally support this point of view. Technology is playing an increasingly important role in our lives and we need to ensure fundraising reflects that changing lifestyle. Technology hasn’t yet increased overall levels of giving, but without it giving would be down. We believe that going forward it has the potential to transform giving in the same way technology is transforming our lifestyles.

Micro-donations by card whether you are shopping in store, online or via your mobile are very affordable and bring both new giving and new givers. There are currently over 9 billion annual card transactions in the UK alone and only a fraction of these currently give consumers an option to donate. We encourage more retailers to join in this movement, unlocking the opportunity for more consumers to give more pennies. Pennies are powerful and could add up to millions of pounds of new funding for charities across the UK.

We have been lucky enough to be hitting the headlines in recent weeks.  It has been wonderful to see the word of Pennies spreading, so we wanted to share with you a few of the highlights.

A short video of our event at BAFTA and new celebrity supporters, Gary Barlow, Jason Donovan and Cheryl Cole have helped boost the coverage.

National print media coverage has included: The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian.

Consumer press coverage has included:  Hello Magazine online, The Daily Goss and Glamour magazine.

Pennies work has also been highlighted in various industry press for example Lovemoney.com, Retail Gazette and Third Sector magazine.

Whilst the BBC seems to have taken to Pennies, with us being featured on BBC News on screen and online, BBC London 94.9 and on BBC World Service.