Nectar launches charity promotion

By Jennifer Clarke
BBC Radio 4's Money Box

The scheme begins at the end of January 2004

The UK's biggest rewards programme, Nectar, is to launch a new scheme which will let its 13 million collectors donate their unused points to a children's charity.

The charity, which will be named in January 2004, will be able to use the cash value of donated points to fund a number of discrete projects to help disadvantaged children.

Richard Campbell is the Marketing Director for LMUK, the company which runs the Nectar programme.

He told Radio 4's Money Box programme that the points would be redeemed at the "top end" of the cash values offered to commercial partners.

In addition, he said Nectar was prepared to make a "fairly substantial" donation to underwrite the project.

Collectors will be able to donate their points on the Nectar website from the end of January. By late spring 2004, they will also be able to give via the Nectar helpline as well.

Details are still being finalised, but donations are likely to be made in tranches of 500 points with no upper limit. The company will then send out regular updates about the charity programme.

Mr Campbell told the programme:

"Every quarter we will come back to our collectors and tell them how many projects we have got off the ground, what they are doing, where it is running, so they can actually see what difference their Nectar points are making in the community."

Earlier attempts

Mr Campbell believes previous efforts had not been pushed enough

In fact, it always has been possible to donate Nectar points to charity.

When Nectar launched in September 2002, it was possible to give points to the designated charities of the four founding sponsors, Sainsburys, Barclaycard, BP and Debenhams.

Those original charities were the NSPCC, Red Cross, Free Kicks, and Tommy's. Since the launch Nectar had added a fifth, Future Forests.

But Richard Campbell admits this facility was not widely promoted.

"I would say that in the last 12 months the level of redemption has been fairly low, probably partly because we have not pushed it particularly hard."

He added that the company had always planned to restructure the way customers could give to charity once the programme was fully established.

The same post that delivers me my Nectar account also brings me lots of requests for contributions to charity John from Reading

Earlier this year it carried out some online research to find out what collectors thought about giving their points to charity.

It became clear that the area of most interest was that of children's charities so the company came up with a shortlist of 12 charities which was eventually whittled down to one.

Once the new scheme goes live in January, it will only be possible to give points to this one charity. However in the future, depending on how successful the scheme proves, Nectar may add others.

Other schemes

Boots and WH Smith told the programme there is no facility for customers to donate their reward points to charity.

Marks and Spencer indicated it was something it may consider introducing in the future but is not currently available.

In its latest mailshot to reward card holders, Tesco offered customers the chance to donate points to its corporate charity Barnardos.

Customers can already make a donation to the charity through the company's mobile phone and ink cartridge recycling schemes.

John from Reading is typical of the kind of person who could take advantage of the new scheme.

A former Barclaycard customer, he has accumulated almost 30,000 Nectar points over the years. He would like to be able to give some of his unused points to charity.

He told the programme it seemed an obvious choice:

"The same post that delivers me my Nectar account also brings me lots of requests for contributions to charity. It would be a very easy way for me to do that."

BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme was broadcast on Saturday, 27 December, 2003 at 1204 GMT.

The programme was repeated on Sunday, 28 December, 2003 at 2102 GMT.