A Plea to all UK KASers for Help

I posted this in the UK Group forum but,for those of you in the UK who are not members of the UK Group, we thought I should post it here too.

As you will know, Pam Johnson and I have formed a UK registered charity called Knit for Life for the purpose of encouraging more people to knit and in order to support KAS more effectively by using the financial opportunities open to UK registered charities. Our eventual aim is to provide a service to all UK KASers whereby we will act as a hub, receiving knitted items and sending them to South Africa in bulk, thereby reducing the postage costs for everyone. For this we need funds. Funding is always a problem for charities and Rob Hoddy has drawn our attention to JustTextGiving which is a terrific way of donating unused monthly mobile phone credits to charity. It costs nothing to donate and JustGiving do not deduct any commission or fees from these particular donations and they claim Gift Aid for us where possible. Unfortunately, in order to make use of this facility, we would have to register with JustGiving which would cost us £18 per month (£15 + VAT). Therefore, in order to justify registration, we would need to be able to guarantee donations of at least £20 per month. Rob has kindly offered to donate his unused credits as have Julie and Brenda if they can but we do really need more people to help.

I have started this discussion to ask if there is anyone else out there who is on a mobile phone payment plan which results in unused credits on a regular (or even irregular) basis who would be prepared to donate these credits to Knit for Life?

Whilst I’m here, can I also mention that we are registered with www.easyfundraising.org.co. If you shop online at all, could we ask you to register with Easyfundraising here: www.easyfundraising.org.uk/d/19q86a86. Registering is easy and once you’ve registered, all you need to do is go to the easyfundraising website, then find the retailer you want from the list, click on that link and start shopping. The system will recognise you and the retailer will pay a small percentage of everything you spend to us. More than 2,000 online retailers are signed up to the scheme so you should be able to find the one you want. It costs you nothing and provides us with much needed funds. Incidentally, they also have an "easysearch" facility which pays small amounts to your chosen charity everytime you search the web through Easysearch. Be warned that, if you choose to do this, you may well be bombarded with advertising spam based on your searches.

If anyone has any other ideas about how we can raise much needed funds in order to send greater quantities to South Africa, we’d love to hear from you. Thanks for reading all this and for your support.

Hi Maria, Your support is so very much appreciated. If you go to our website www.knitforlife.co.uk you will find all the contact details. I don't think the Paypal button is working at the moment and I have yet to update the website (will do it over the holiday period I hope!) but we can also now accept donations through the BT MyDonate website. If you google this, you'll be able to find it. Once you get there, search for Knit for Life and you should get a 'holding page'. Once registered, it's possible to donate to us through BT. The good news is that they don't deduct any commission or fees (unlike JustGiving and Paypal) so we get the whole donation and they claim Gift Aid where possible for us. I'll get all this on our website shortly. In the meantime, thank you so much. Yes, of course you can spread the word for us personally and over the internet - we'd be delighted.

Replies

Maria Teresa Cleasby December 22, 2012 at 5:28pm

Hi Elaine, I will find out and will also mention to others. It is also customary for many people to send yearly donations either at Christmas or Easter or other religious festivals - it is often easiest to do so by post and anonymously. Might we have a postal address and may I have your permission to give it to others both personally and over the internet.
- Elaine Jones > Maria Teresa Cleasby December 24, 2012 at 1:33am
  
  Hi Maria, Your support is so very much appreciated. If you go to our website www.knitforlife.co.uk you will find all the contact details. I don't think the Paypal button is working at the moment and I have yet to update the website (will do it over the holiday period I hope!) but we can also now accept donations through the BT MyDonate website. If you google this, you'll be able to find it. Once you get there, search for Knit for Life and you should get a 'holding page'. Once registered, it's possible to donate to us through BT. The good news is that they don't deduct any commission or fees (unlike JustGiving and Paypal) so we get the whole donation and they claim Gift Aid where possible for us. I'll get all this on our website shortly. In the meantime, thank you so much. Yes, of course you can spread the word for us personally and over the internet - we'd be delighted.
  - Maria Teresa Cleasby > Elaine Jones December 24, 2012 at 3:05am
    
    Thank you for this, Elaine. I will ask my daughter to help me with this. Have a wonderful holiday xoxoxo
Julie stewart December 22, 2012 at 1:18pm

Hi Elaine I've just joined the forums and found this. Do you mean minutes left at the end of the month on contract phones? Sorry to sound thick but wanted to double check. If it is minutes I always have loads left over each month.
- Elaine Jones > Julie stewart December 24, 2012 at 1:28am
  
  Hi Julie and welcome to the forums. If you go to the UK group and click on the Plea for Help discussion there, you will see that our resident expert on this - Robert Hoddy - has posted some comments. You're not being thick at all - it's a bit of a mystery to me too! I have a pay as you go phone so I needed some help with this. Apparently, if you pay a fixed monthly fee for unlimited texts and internet connection, you often have unused credit for phone calls left a the end of the month. If you don't use these credits, then you can donate them by sending a text to the dedicated number, quoting our reference no which is KFLI44 a £ sign and the amount you want to donate and we get the money! The number is on the UK group discussion. I think it's 70070 but please check first. Thanks so much if you are able to help.
  - Julie stewart > Elaine Jones December 24, 2012 at 3:10am
    
    Thanks for that Elaine. I'll check out the other dicussion.
Elaine Jones October 1, 2012 at 4:23am

I'm delighted to say that Knit for Life has just sent a donation of £50 (approx. $80) to Knit-a-Square South Africa to help Ronda with distribution costs. As and when their import licence is issued, we are aiming to send further donations every time we send a shipment. As Pam has indicated, all donations received from KAS members will be ring-fenced and used solely for the benefit of KAS. We can claim Gift Aid, we've registered with EasyFundraising and we have support from the local branch of Sainsburys who are allowing us to do bag-packing in December, all of which is only possible because we are a UK registered charity.
- Mary Kristel Lokken > Elaine Jones October 1, 2012 at 7:39am
  
  That is fantastic news! Good job!
  
  Wish I lived in the UK....
Dawn Blake September 23, 2012 at 4:55am

sorry you must think I am a bit stupid but I still don't understand how it works?
- Maria Teresa Cleasby > Dawn Blake September 23, 2012 at 5:33pm
  
  Hi Dawn, if you were asking about easyfundraising I can attempt to explain.
  
  When you enter the easyfundraising website you register and choose a charity. You receive a confirmation email that you are registered and your cause's name.
  
  Thereafter, whenever you shop online, enter your easyfundraising page first, choose the retailer and shop as normal - you pay nothing extra. The retailer donates a percentage of what you buy to your chosen charity.
  
  We've built at least two church roofs that way :)

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