Leading independent pharmacy chain Well Pharmacy was delighted to be named a winner of a Social Impact Award, organised by Pennies, the award-winning micro-donation charity.
The award – presented as part of Pennies’ annual celebration of the micro-donation movement – recognises a partner who has embraced Pennies for the first time or in a new channel/solution in 2023, effectively setting up for success with a clear, positive and tangible social impact.
Well officially launched micro-donations in-store on the 2023 Random Acts of Kindness Day (17th February) in partnership with Pennies and Trust Retail, part of the Trust Payments Group.
The move came in a boost to colleague and corporate fundraising in aid of Mind with customers offered the chance to donate 9p on top of their purchase when making a payment by card or digital wallet. These funds, which are processed by Trust Payments in conjunction with Pennies, help support the mental health charity Mind to run services including the Mind Infoline, legal line, and online community, Side by Side.
Alison Hutchinson CBE, CEO Pennies said: “Well Pharmacy has implemented Pennies in-store and continues to work with Pennies to embed micro-donations with customers and colleagues focusing on colleague engagement and the impact the donations are having in their local communities. From the CEO, IT Team, Ops Team, to the Retail Team, they have all really engaged with Pennies and aligned with supporting their charity partner. They have included Pennies in their colleague inductions to ensure understanding and engagement. We’re delighted to name them the winners of The Social Impact Award – New Partner – it is a great example of working with Pennies as a charity partner to maximise donations and impact.”
Seb Hobbs, CEO, Well Pharmacy said: “We are delighted to be recognised for this new way of donating, which is a simple approach and can make all the difference to such a vital charity. All of our community are actively engaged, recognised and rewarded and our combined approach has seen just under 500,000 customers opting in. With one in four of us experiencing a mental health problem every year, we know how important it is to support Mind’s work. We are very proud of our charity partnership and working with Pennies will continue to play an important part in future partnerships too.”
“At Trust Payments, we strive to build a better, more sustainable tomorrow by helping businesses drive social and environmental change so we’re thrilled that Pennies have recognised Well for taking this great step forwards in helping to make it seamless for customers to play their part with frictionless donations to support Mind. We look forward to helping Well continue to reach its fundraising targets and expanding this technology across our Trust Retail portfolio.”
Pennies has estimated that micro-donations present an ambitious but achievable opportunity to inject an annual £1bn into the UK charity sector – if every UK card holder gave just 35p a week.
In total, the fintech charity has enabled over 200 million micro-donations, raising over £47million in vital additional income for charities in the UK, Northern Ireland, and Republic of Ireland.