Wales Air Ambulance ‘Loving Fundraising Life’ with Give A Little Tap to Pay

The charity liked the portable ‘CollecTin More’ contactless donation boxes, which use Give A Little software, but they knew that it wouldn’t be practical to distribute these to their fundraising staff across Wales. 

As a solution, they opted to invest in two CollecTin More contactless donation boxes alongside Give A Little Tap to Pay, which allows volunteers and staff to collect contactless donations on their work smartphones without the need for an additional card reader.

Laura Coyne, Wales Air Ambulance’s Community Fundraising Manager, explains: “Wales Air Ambulance covers the whole of Wales 24 hours a day, so as a charity, we are geographically spread out. ‘Give A Little Tap to Pay’ is a practical solution for community events and occasions where there are several events happening at the same time. They’re also very useful when we can’t get the CollecTins out to all of them.”

“We have used Tap to Pay at several events and locations, and I’m very happy to report that we are loving fundraising life with Give A Little Tap to Pay! It’s so much better than using card readers alone as the Give A Little software gives the donor the choice of how much they would like to donate rather than us having to awkwardly ask them. It’s also saved us money by not having to send a card reader out to a particular location.”

Laura continues:

“A highlight has been collecting £745 in one night (in addition to cash) at a talk by Olympic gold medallist rower, Harry Brightmore, at Cardiff Business Club. We used Give A Little Tap to Pay on two Android smartphones and took them around the tables. We encountered every kind of phone and card and it performed really well. At one point, Harry was happy for us to let people hold the medal while they were waiting for their donation to be taken - it was such a sweet and lovely experience.”

“We also had a really moving incident where a gentleman came up to our stand at an event to let us know we attended a family member the week prior who had since recovered. He asked to make a donation using a card and donated £100 using Give A Little Tap to Pay. This was a great example where actually, we perhaps wouldn’t have taken the donation if it hadn’t been for having Give A Little Tap to Pay on our phones. I have been rolling it out and offering training to staff and it is starting to be used beyond the community fundraising department.”

Laura has an exciting plan for rolling the Tap to Pay technology out even further: 

“The long-term vision is that I would love to look at rolling this out to all phones within the organisation, which would be over 100 people. We are all very proud to work for the charity and we have a saying in the organisation that ‘everyone is a fundraiser’. With the right training and procedures in place, it would be wonderful if staff from all corners of our organisation, from delivery drivers to the accounts department, were enabled to securely take a donation when the occasion presents itself at work (which is often unexpectedly). I think Tap to Pay technology is the best solution to make this happen in the future.”

Laura has also presented the technology to staff internally at their conference to build interest and grow confidence: 

“It was really good to show Give A Little Tap to Pay at our conference so staff could see it. Some people do get nervous about taking (and making) payments using phones as they worry about fraud, but as Give A Little allows us to add our charity branding, it gives confidence and a sense of security that it’s legitimate. I’m really happy with it.”

On why she chose to go with Give A Little, Laura said: 

“It’s really apparent that Give A Little is all about charities - you can feel and sense that the heart of the organisation is in the right place. It really shone through when I was doing my research and it’s clear that the team wants to listen to charities to help develop the platform and I’m really enjoying being on the journey!”