Charity Christmas Cards
We are often reminded that Christmas is not all about giving and receiving presents, santa, turkey, and rudolph. It is of course about baby jesus. Yep, that too. No I was thinking about something else. Charity.
It is a sad fact that during a recession charities are among the worst hit. As the purse strings tighten luxury items get ditched and people become more inward looking as they ensure that their own family gets through the hard times. There are other ways to support your favourite charities and the purchase of charity christmas cards is a perfect and easy way to give whilst buying your Christmas cards. Most charities are affliliated with a Christmas card publisher in some shape or form and benefit either from a percentage of the card sales or a fixed amount per card or card pack sold.
Now to the small print. Not our small print but the manufacturer’s small print. The amount the printer gives away to the charity can vary considerably from as little as 5p per card to a more attractive 50% or more of the card cost. Many of the big charities such as Cancer Research, Macmillan Cancer Care, Barnados etc team up with more than one printer and the one you choose can determine what share of the profits goes towards the charity instead of the director’s pockets. The other important factor to appreciate is that some of the big printers sell their cards through a network of UK agents and through a white label website on behalf of the charity itself. The white label site usually offers more profit for the charity because the printer does not have to give a way a slice of their margin to the agent.
If you have not got time to fight your way through the small print then there are two places to start when trying to find the best charity share. First have a look on the charity’s main website. From september onwards most charities will have links from their homepage to promote the sources of cards that support their cause. You would expect them to offer you the options that provide the greatest benefit to their charity. To hunt down the white label sites then you will normally find the charity name within the url of the website. The names of the charities, especially among the larger ones, will be registered trademarks and the charity would not take kindly to a firm using this trademark of a card sales site without their full back. There is a third option of course, especially if you are in any doubt, and that is contact the charity directly to ask for their advice.