Children 1st winning with contactless donations

The competition attracted entries from over 50 charities at the event and Mairi was thrilled to be the winner!

Mairi says: 

“I won the CollecTin unit at the 2023 Scottish Fundraising Conference after entering a competition on the Give A Little stand. In the last year, the contactless donation box has been used to collect donations at corporate events, conferences and community events. Colleagues have been impressed with the unit and how easy the Give A Little software is to use.”

Children 1st exists to prevent abuse and neglect, to protect children across Scotland and keep them safe from harm. Donations from the public are extremely important in enabling the charity to do their work. The fundraising team has made really good use of the CollecTin More contactless donation box, which uses Give A Little software, at a range of events. 

Corporate Partners

Children 1st has loaned the CollecTin out to one of their corporate partners to use at their in-house fundraising events. 

The fundraising team explains: 

“It’s so easy to send the CollecTin to our corporate partner. They plug in the unit and away they go! We really like that Give A Little allows us to display clearly branded Children 1st campaigns on the device. Staff can simply tap on their preferred donation amount - we have chosen to display £3, £7, £10 and a choose your own amount option - and the funds come directly to Children 1st. There is no need for our corporate partner to handle cash, go to the bank, or for their staff to look for spare change. It couldn’t be easier. The on-screen amounts are agreed and set up in advance through our Give A Little account. The fundraised total is confirmed with the corporate partner, added to their record on our database and a thank you sent out.”

Conferences

The charity has also taken the CollecTin to a conference where they have a stall staffed by the fundraising team.

Lauren Hill, Corporate Fundraising and Partnerships Manager said:

“People really loved the CollecTin at the conference - it was a tech event so a tough crowd to please, but they were very impressed. I personally love that Give A Little allows you to enable Gift Aid on the campaign displayed on the CollecTin so we can collect Gift Aid details after the donation and I love that it lets people specify an amount to donate as well as the three pre-set options. It really does make it as easy for you as it can. As it was my first time using the machine, I wasn't aware of the battery life. The battery had died later in the day (after a good seven hours) but the great thing was, as soon as it was plugged in, it was ready to take donations again. With previous machines it has taken 5-10 minutes to reboot and get ready to use but this was within a minute. Most people donated the £10 top ask too, which was great to see.” 

Community events

 

The charity is also exploring different ways to use the unit and has been using the CollecTin and Give a Little at a community pub quiz. This time they switched Gift Aid off as it was likely that there wouldn’t be time for people to fill in the form on the device. 

The fundraising team said:

“Some people came back to add a donation after the quiz, which was really good. We are also looking at other opportunities to use the unit at solo fundraiser events and community group initiatives.”

Summing up, Mairi said:

“Both CollecTin and Give A Little has given the fundraising team a great set of tools to increase their cashless fundraising. The team particularly likes that Give A Little enables them to review and compare income from each event. They also really like the fact that they can create bespoke Give A Little campaigns and tailor the pre-set donation levels for an event, and then increase the preset levels after monitoring the average donation collected. I’m so pleased I entered Give A Little’s competition to win a CollecTin and I’m excited to be part of the ‘Mastering contactless donations for street collections and in the community’ panel at this year’s Scottish Fundraising Conference along with Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity and the Give A Little team!”