Have a good sit down and help Cancer Research
A new report, out last week, spoke of how people in the UK donate three times more when they pay by contactless card. 11 charities, including Oxfam, Prostate Cancer UK and the NSPCC, have just finished a four-month experiment using contactless boxes developed by Barclaycard. The trial follows fears that a cashless society means fewer people carry loose change to donate to street collectors. However, using these special contactless donation points seems to do the trick. The NSPCC says the average card donation was £3.07, more than three times the £1 people normally hand over in cash.
The charity, alongside 10 others, partnered with Barclaycard for a four-month trial from September, which involved the organisations testing out a total of 100 collection units designed to receive card payments as well notes and coins. The boxes were used in a variety of ways by the different charities, from collections at special events to being placed by the till in charity shops.
The card machines were programmed to automatically take £2 when a contactless card was scanned, but could be adjusted to take payments up to the contactless limit of £30 and larger amounts using chip and pin. Over the four months, the NSPCC said, it received an average of £3.07 through contactless donations, while its average cash donation for December was just £1. It also received a one-off donation of £1,000 during the trial using the chip-and-pin system.
Of course, anyone can create contactless donation boxes (I say that flippantly because no doubt our partners such as Creditcall would take me to task on that - but you know what I mean). The real trick is to be innovative about ‘how’ the contactless donation is collected. If there is one charity organization that’s has created a name for itself in the innovative donation sphere it has to be Cancer Research.
They were the first to embrace contactless donations through their interactive contactless donation window display back in 2015.
This year, just in time for World Cancer Day, Cancer Research UK is rolling out the world’s first network of smart benches which allow those sitting on them to donate to the charity using contactless payment technology. Cancer Research UK is tapping into the smart device and Internet of Things (IoT) trend by rolling out ten benches in London providing solar powered charging for smartphones and free Wi-Fi connectivity.
Working in partnership with smart city companies Strawberry Energy and MKTG, Cancer Research UK will provide the charging and connectivity for free, but contactless payment tech in the benches will enable people using them to donate £2 to the charity and research organisation.
To begin with, the charity has launched 10 benches across the two London boroughs of Islington and Lewisham in time for World Cancer Day on Saturday (4 February) and plans to launch a further 90 elsewhere throughout the year.
Michael Docherty, director of digital at Cancer Research UK, said, “Having used contactless technology in innovative ways in the past to engage the public in the work we do, we are always looking for new opportunities to incorporate contactless technology further throughout the charity and make it even easier for our supporters to help us beat cancer sooner. These smart benches seemed like the next step in our use of contactless technology to bring charitable giving closer to our supporters, integrating it seamlessly into cutting-edge street furniture.”
But the benches are more than just donation-collecting, charge and Wi-Fi points; sensors are built into the benches which provide real-time data on the air quality around them. This could come in handy once the benches reach parts of central London where pollution and air quality is a genuine concern and a health risk. The air quality data can also be piped to the Strawberry Energy smartphone app so that people can check on how clean or dirty the air is around them.
Fresh air with a feel good factor - is that the future of the park bench?
Steve Atkins
Contactless Intelligence
