The announcement comes as the company adopts a partnership approach with leading marketing, reward and incentive agencies to embed philanthropy in brand campaigns

UK fin-tech company For Good Causes - which already enables consumers to donate their loyalty points, cash back and air miles to over 20,000 charities via brands like Vodafone, BP, Quidco and Rakuten- has announced it has expanded beyond the loyalty sector.

Since its national launch in April, For Good Causes has seen thousands of consumers donate to over 2,000 charities with an average loyalty-funded donation value of £6.74. 

In June, the average donation value increased to £27.02 as brand campaigns featuring the For Good Causes gift card were activated. The most popular reward denominations in June were £25 and £30 with rewards ranging from £10 to £100, whilst new customer acquisition ‘Refer a Friend’ campaigns and rewards for survey completions have driven the uplift in average donation values.

“Brands empowering their consumers to donate to a cause they love can expect to create greater emotional engagement and loyalty as they tap into something their consumers already care about - their charity of choice,” said Wendy Martin, CMO at For Good Causes. “Emotional connection translates into a better share of consumer spending, with customers typically spending twice as much with brands they are loyal to and having a 300% higher lifetime value, according to data from Motista. Right now we are seeing a surge in community spirit with consumers and brands keen to support societal, environmental and community activity more than ever.”

The potential to create greater emotional engagement by empowering consumers to donate to a charity of their choice is high, yet relatively untapped. Recent research by YouGov and Mando Connect highlighted that 28% of Brits want loyalty programmes to support good causes or help the environment. Yet, even though almost one in three want this and it is the third most popular type of reward, few programmes are currently active in this space.

“For Good Causes is continually innovating to find new ways to give that can create benefits for all parties in our ecosystem,” said Steve Wilks, COO at For Good Causes. “Our decision to expand beyond the £7bn of unused loyalty points, cash back and air miles into the £3.5bn B2B gift card market by launching the UK’s first universal charity gift card is already proving to be a positive move, with our clients now engaging customers across the entire customer lifecycle and enabling them to donate to any of the 20,000 charities already live on our platform.”

To support its entrance into the reward and incentive market, For Good Causes has joined the UK industry body the Institute of Promotional Marketing (IPM). “The demand for a charity option is increasingly prevalent in the briefs our members see from brands,” said Andrew Rae, Managing Director at IPM. “We are delighted to have For Good Causes join the IPM and work with our members to offer a new reward option that delivers societal and environmental benefits.”

For Good Causes has partnered with a number of leading UK and global agencies to embed philanthropy across the marketing mix and continues to seek new partners to work with, so that it can offer a charity solution to hundreds of UK and international brands. Brands deploying the capability can opt to  pre-purchase donation tokens from For Good Causes therefore avoiding the need for any integration work, or use the For Good Causes APIs to entirely white-label the service and embed it within the agency or brand’s customer journey.

Motivforce are a leading global agency specialising in B2B loyalty and marketing campaigns that will be utilising the For Good Causes APIs to enable charity donations within their award-winning B2B campaigns. 

“We’re delighted to partner with For Good Causes to meet our global client demand for charitable giving within their programmes. Now, post COVID-19, we are seeing more major brands than ever being keen to support their customers’ local communities - and the For Good Causes platform enables us to deliver that simply and effectively,” said David Cox, MD at Motivforce. 

Whilst the For Good Causes proposition resonates well with all demographics, it is particularly compelling for millennials. More than 60% of millennials stated they would actually prefer to donate their rewards to good causes than retain them for personal use, in research by KPMG. 

However, consumers don’t have to choose one or the other. By partnering with Xoxoday, a motivation and engagement specialist, and WeGift, a technology infrastructure powering the global incentives economy, companies can issue flexible rewards that allow the recipient to utilise some of their rewards for personal use whilst still opting to make a donation to a charity of choice via For Good Causes.

“WeGift has invested heavily in new digital capabilities that enable companies to increase customer acquisition, activation and retention. One feature of our platform, WeGift Select, will enable companies to incentivise consumers and deliver social impact via one reward. We are delighted to have enabled the For Good Causes charity eGift card on our platform,” said Adam Hobbs, VP Global Supply at WeGift.

“Users of Xoxoday’s reward, employee, marketing and sales incentives platforms - Plum, Empuls and Compass - are all empowered now to consider sharing their successes with others in need in over 70 countries. Through our partnership with For Good Causes we are very pleased to facilitate this and build on our existing CSR programs,” said Ben O’Sullivan, Director, Europe at Xoxoday.

As For Good Causes continues to onboard new brands and strike partnership agreements with agencies to increase the utilisation of its proposition, it is also focused on market expansion with demand from existing customers and those in the pipeline to be operational in additional territories.

Forthcoming developments include enabling multi-currency and significantly increasing its international charity footprint to support the demand of new and existing multinational clients. Whilst enabling consumers to make donations without always using cash is the primary focus of For Good Causes, the company is also focused on empowering others to innovate and create new ways and places to give.

A recent campaign run by Push Entertainment, an e-commerce service provider supporting the music and entertainment industry, utilised For Good Causes capability to raise over £18,000 via merchandise sales for NHS Charities Together.

“We have architected our platform, APIs and charity funds distribution model so that they can be utilised by other businesses who, like us, are keen to empower generosity,” said Lawrence Williams, CTO at For Good Causes. “Whether that’s via an optional donation at the end of an e-commerce transaction, a donation that’s embedded in the price of a product or perhaps powering in-app donations from mobile banking apps,our APIs are available for any businesses to leverage.” 

“It’s a win-win-win,” concluded Crispin Rogers, CEO at For Good Causes. “Consumers love the idea of supporting a cause they care about without always having to put their hand in their pocket. Brands value the ability to offer an emotionally engaging, personalised and digital reward, and charities benefit from access to a brand-new income stream. We invite more brands, marketing agencies and service providers to join our movement to empower and enable generosity.”