Bmycharity blog

Thanks from Ben and Matt

It has been a momentous time for Bmycharity.  Last week we announced the withdrawal of our service, and three days ago we announced that we are merging with Help for Heroes.  Behind the scenes we've been inundated with messages of support and encouragement following each announcement, and we'd like to thank everyone who has been in touch by email, phone, in person, via our blog, on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

There have been some very moving messages indeed - and from some unexpected sources.  We're grateful to everyone who got in touch - and here are some special mentions...

• Those who offered to give to keep us going - most of all the lady who offered to sell her home!
• Those who proposed mergers with their own enterprises
• Those who we've competed with and who were gracious

At a challenging time we've enjoyed an amazing quantity of kindness and generousity and discovered hundreds of friends we never knew we had.  Thank you.

We're really pleased that the future of commission-free fundraising is assured.  But just in case we get complacent, we've kept a copy of an anonymous 4 second shouted voicemail we received that taught us some colourful new language and will keep our feet firmly on the ground :)

Bmycharity commission free service continues in partnership with Help for Heroes

We are delighted to announce that Help for Heroes (H4H) has agreed to join forces with Bmycharity.  All fundraising pages and accounts remain live at www.bmycharity.com.  We will ensure that our commission free service continues for every charity.

Help for Heroes, the strictly non political charity that supports wounded Servicemen and women, prides itself on a no nonsense approach to giving with minimal administrative costs. Together, Bmycharity and Help for Heroes can offer a service that allows fundraisers to donate their sponsorship directly to their charity of choice with no extra costs so everything you raise goes to your charity and that's it.

What do I need to do? Nothing, please just stay with us and we will do the rest. Our service will continue as before and the new partnership will offer the service to all its existing customers.  We will not be withdrawing the service as previously announced and all pages and accounts remain live at www.bmycharity.com.

What do I do if I have already signed up with another charity giving organisation? Its up to you, it's your choice but we would love it if you came back to Bmycharity to ensure that every penny you raise goes to the cause you support!  Your page and account are where you left them and ready for use right now!

What about the data, are my details safe and will H4H be hitting me with special offers and begging letters? No, H4H will not. The data that the new partnership has will be respected as before.

What about other charities, will the service continue or is this just for H4H? The service will continue with all charities who are existing  Bmycharity clients in exactly the same way as before.  Bmycharity and H4H will honour the terms of existing Bmycharity contracts.

I am a charity and would like to be registered with Bmycharity. That's fine, we would like to sign you up but ask that you give us a few days to let the dust settle so we can handle all the enquires from existing customers first. If you register your interest through the Bmycharity website we can get back to you.

Are you committed to 0% commission? Yes, we share the belief that charity fundraising should be commission-free but we are not criticising others who charge - in fact we hope they'll follow our example.

How can you finance and invest in the service when Bmycharity recently failed to raise investment? By coupling Bmycharity's lean, low cost business with H4H's technical resources and relationships with banks and corporate partners, we're able to cover the costs of providing the service to the charity sector commission-free.  H4H's trading company and technology partners will invest in developing the service to remain at the cutting edge of online fundraising innovation.

Is a charity allowed to run a service like this? Bmycharity will be owned by Help for Heroes Trading Co Ltd, a wholly owned trading subsidiary of Help for Heroes. The profits from Help for Heroes Trading are used to cover all the administrative costs of both the charity and the trading company.

Chief Executive of Bmycharity, Ben Brabyn says "Over the last 10 years Bmycharity has helped more than 60,000 people raise over £28 million for UK charities.  To widespread acclaim, we announced that we were dropping all commission charges last October and donation totals and average values have soared since.  However, with a team of only two staff and no external financial backers we were unable to meet demand and reluctantly announced the withdrawal of our service last week.  As former Royal Marines, Matt Cooper and I were delighted when Help for Heroes invited us to join forces with them to keep online fundraising commission-free for charities."

Help for Heroes Chief Executive Bryn Parry says "At H4H, we do everything we can to ensure that every penny we receive goes to the cause and so we want to be sure that Bmycharity can continue to offer their free service to the charity sector. We felt that our supporters should continue to have a choice and are delighted to be able to partner Bmycharity in their fund raising efforts. We admire the ethos of Bmycharity and feel that we are natural partners. We are delighted and hope that our supporters will be as well."

Thank you all for you continued support and we very much hope that you will come back to our commission free service.

For more information or updates, please keep in touch via our blog, twitter and Facebook.  You can also see the latest news from Help for Heroes here.

With best wishes

Bryn Parry and Ben Brabyn
CEO H4H and CEO Bmycharity

Withdrawal of the Bmycharity online fundraising service

Over the next three weeks we will be withdrawing the Bmycharity online fundraising service.

We've had a fantastic response to our commission-free service and have successfully recruited corporate sponsorship.  A queue of charities is waiting to register and donation volumes and average values have surged.  For some time we have been seeking additional resources to help us to develop our system, grow our team and engage with charities and corporate sponsors to support this growth.  We are a two man team with no external investors in a market increasingly characterised by companies with scores of employees and multi-million pound backing.  Our search for investment has been unsuccessful, culminating in the failure of a proposed deal in the last few days, so the time has come for us to withdraw our service.  We regret the inconvenience this will cause to our users and clients.

Since 2001 we've helped 300 charities raise over £28 million.  We'd like to thank the thousands of fundraisers and donors who have encouraged their friends to use Bmycharity, the hundreds of charities that have registered with us, and the many suppliers and advisors who have contributed.  Without additional resources, we've done all we can to contribute to the development of the market for online fundraising in the UK, and now the time has come to seek other challenges.

With Best Wishes

Ben Brabyn and Matt Cooper

Notes

1. All donations processed by Bmycharity are safe.  Donations will be passed to charities in the normal way, with the final transfers taking place in April 2010.
2. Donation and fundraising pages will remain live (able to take donations) until the end of 19 March 2010
3. Fundraising pages will be visible until 31 March 2010
4. Charity reporting services will be available until 31 March 2010 - please ensure all donation data is downloaded by this date since it will not be available thereafter
   
5. No further charity sites will be launched and any fees from unlaunched sites will be refunded