Save the Children create contactless Christmas jumpers

Visa and Save the Children have created the first contactless Christmas jumpers. You can see 30 of them in action to support the charity’s Christmas Jumper Day this week. This year Christmas Jumper Day takes place on Friday 14 December. Save the Children is expecting over five million people across the UK to take part by wearing silly Christmas jumpers and donating to the charity. Visa's innovation team have developed the contactless Christmas jumper, and they will be used to encourage donations at a variety of festive activities. Visa of course knows that cash usage is falling, with over 60% of face-to-face Visa transactions being conducted via contactless terminals. Sundeep Kaur, Head of UK & Ireland Merchant Services at Visa, explained: “As more of us choose to benefit from the convenience, speed and security of contactless payments, we’re always looking for innovative ways to enable people to make contactless payments in places they might not expect.”   Tap and give on a Christmas jumper The contactless Christmas jumpers will be in action at 16 London tube stations on Friday. The fundraisers wearing them will invite commuters to them their sleeve to donate £2 to Save the Children's Christmas Jumper Day. The charity stats that each donation of this amount "could help pay for a blanket and hat to keep a newborn baby warm. Or buy antibiotics to treat children suffering from pneumonia, one of the biggest killers of children".     Contactless giving opportunities can be achieved through and endless variety of physical items, from PDSA's dogs, hospital friends' wheelchairs, museum exhibits, to a car, benches, badges and even a panto reindeer costume, as the former Director of Fundraising at Oxfam demonstrated.   Last minute Christmas jumpers If you haven't yet bought your Christmas jumper to wear on Friday, Save the Children’s premium chain of Mary’s Living & Giving charity shops has teamed up with Visa and Transport for London to launch two contactless Christmas jumper pop-up shops at Kings Cross and Canary Wharf tube stations. The shops will be open from 7:30am until 1pm on Friday 14 December, selling vintage Christmas jumpers at £10 a jumper, Christmas tree decorations, Christmas cards and gift wrap. Celebrities including Josh Denzel and Aston Merrygold will be taking part at the pop-up shop in Kings Cross on the day, wearing the contactless Christmas jumpers to enable donations from the general public.   Sarah Button-Stephens, Campaign Manager for Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day, said: “We are always looking for new and unique ways to reach the British public and raise vital funds for our life-saving work. We’re so excited to team up with Visa and develop the world’s first Christmas jumper with contactless donation technology, it’s the perfect way to raise money for Christmas Jumper Day and help make the world better with a sweater.” You can't buy a contactless jumper for yourself, in case you were wondering.   

from UK Fundraising https://ift.tt/2Bn6oKD