March 17th Update: If you’re short of time, you’ll be pleased to hear that BMyCharity have been rescued. Give A Brick would still love Sir Richard Branson to sponsor us to move across to his Virgin Money Giving model (and if you’re reading this Sir Richard, please get in touch. We’d love to hear what you think) and you can read our update on the situation here.

Regular readers will remember my sadness and frustration last week when I shared with you the news that BMyCharity would be closing for business at the end of the month. As is often the case when talking about bad news, a great conversation took place. It was suggested that we look again at the model offered by Virgin Money Giving and just this afternoon, we were pointed in the direction of EveryDayHero.co.uk who have no monthly fee or set up fee but charge 4.75% on every donation. I tried telephoning the office to find out more before writing this post but unfortunately missed them for today. I’ll try again tomorrow and keep you posted

In the meantime, despite the no set up fees or monthly fees of EveryDayHero.co.uk, there is a better option: Virgin Money Giving.

A thought process evolved over the course of the conversation in the comments section and here’s where we’ve ended up:

Virgin Money Giving are a non-profit organisation. They charge no monthly fee. Instead, they charge a one time set up fee of £100+VAT and 2%+bank charges on every donation. Assuming somebody somewhere can have a little word in Richard Branson’s ear, they could be the knight on white charger. Because Virgin Money Giving are non-profit, it would unrealistic to expect them to be able to afford what I’m about to propose in the next paragraph. However, a little bird told me that Richard Branson is very charitable and he has a few quid

Having read on their own blog how keen Virgin Money Giving are to support BMyCharity fundraisers, I’m calling on the overall boss of Virgin Money Giving to be equally as supportive to all BMyCharity charities. Maybe I’m living in cloud cukoo land but I believe that with the financial backing of Richard Branson, Virgin Money Giving could waive the set up fee for all BMyCharity charities who choose to transfer over to Virgin Money Giving.

Why would they do that?

BMyCharity had a one time set up fee of £150+VAT. Having already used the bricks of 150 kind people in order to make use of the online sponsorship pages, I’m not happy right now to use another 100 bricks in order to allow us to work with Virgin Money Giving. I literally get excited every single time someone gives a brick. Every single pound that is donated is celebrated over. As a team of dedicated volunteers working from home on our own equipment, Give A Brick has no admin costs. In fact, the £150 we paid to set up with BMyCharity was the first time we used your bricks for anything other than directly supporting our first project. Now do you begin to understand why it hurt so much to read that they were folding?

There are were three main players in this arena: Just Giving, Virgin Money Giving and BMyCharity. Just Giving are the pros. They charge £20 each month and take 7% commission on donations. They are the least charity friendly in terms of money in the charity pot. Virgin Money Giving are the new kids on the block. They only launched late last year and are still trying to prove they have muscle. BMyCharity have lost their muscles and are bowing out.

According to their website, BMyCharity has 300 charities on it’s books. If Virgin Money Giving were to invite all these charities to use their services (with no set up fee) that would give Virgin a much bigger share of the charity pot. It wouldn’t be bad publicity either On their home page, Virgin Money Giving have a video that talks about Virgin as liking to take business and shake it up a little. Gifting in all the charities let down by BMyCharity would certainly give the fundraising arena a good shake up

How much will it cost?

Using BMyCharity’s figure of 300 charities, each needing a £100 fee waived, that gives us a figure of £30,000. That’s no small change. I understand that completely, really I do. £30,000 added to the GAB coffers would be enough for us to start and complete the penultimate phase of our first project. However, I also understand that to successful folks in business, £30,000 is really just a drop in the ocean. Some really successful business people could afford to waive the fees of 300 charities and give enough bricks to finish the entire first project. (If you know some really successful business folk, feel free to ask them to Give A Brick )

How can this be achieved?

The only way that Richard Branson is going to give £30,000 to Virgin Money Giving for the purposes of gifting in 300 charities is if enough people ask him. That’s where you come in He’s a Twitter user for starters (albeit not a regular, daily tweets type user) so that’s one way to start. Virgin Money Giving are also on Twitter so by all means start talking to them too.

On the Virgin website, there is a place where you can ask Richard a question. If enough people started asking him about this, somebody somewhere would have to talk to him about it would they?! You need to register before asking a question so if you’re short of time, be warned.

How else can we bring this to the attention of Sir R? I need your help and ideas. This has always been the case with Give A Brick: lots of individuals coming together to make a difference. What can you do to help right now?