Creator / originator

Polly Gowers is the founder and CEO of Everyclick, the technology company behind Give as you Live™. In 2005, Polly’s vision was to exploit existing affiliate models to raise funds for charity with every online search or purchase made. Everyclick was created from a desire to turn everyday online activity into a recurring and unrestricted revenue stream for charities and causes. Everyclick Search was launched in 2005 to great success, winning numerous awards and gaining the daily support of over 150,000 users. Since then, Polly and her team have developed a portfolio of award-winning products, powered by Everyclick technology. Their most recent product is Give as you Live™ and Everyclick has raised over £1.8 million for a wide range of UK charities.

Summary / objectives

Give as you Live™ is a new application, developed by Everyclick that enables charity supporters to raise money, on average £75 per year, at no cost to themselves or their charity. Every time a supporter shops online, a percentage of each purchase they make goes to a charity of their choice. This revenue is generated through Everyclick technology, which reapportions existing marketing expenditure by companies. Give as you Live™ represents an additional £1.25 billion in potential unrestricted revenue every year to UK charities.

When you search using Google, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, or eBay to make purchases, the app will suggest similar products from over a thousand supported stores with 15 million products available. If you visit any of the supported stores directly, the app will ask you if you would like to start raising funds. The Give as you Live™ app works with all major search engines and retailers’ websites so there is no need to compromise on the products customers buy, the price they pay or the stores they visit. At present the app is available for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox with versions for Safari, Chrome, iPad, iPhone and Android versions being released later in 2011.

The Give as you Live™ app works on a simple commission-based structure. Many online retailers pay a commission to search engines for every person that visits their website from that search engine and buys a product. This marketing commission is typically a percentage of the overall value of the product. Give as you Live™ works by collecting and redirecting a portion of this commission to a charity of the purchaser’s choice. The app shows you how much of that product’s purchase price will be given to your chosen cause. When you click on a product through the app window you will be sent to the relevant retailer and offered the products you are searching for at the same price. When you purchase the product, the percentage listed will be given to your chosen cause.

Supporters can give to any of the UK’s 200,000 charities, with actively participating charities receiving an increased share of the commission percentage. There are already 250 UK charities that are actively using the app and encouraging their supporters to use it, with more charities being supported every week. These include The National Trust, Breast Cancer Campaign, ZSL Conservation, Tommy’s and Starlight Children’s Foundation. Everyclick has also provided the charities with social media campaigns and toolkits to help recruit supporters to Give as you Live™.

Background

Companies have been making (not so) small fortunes for years through affiliate marketing, it’s about time that charities took a slice of the pie. Affiliate marketing for charities has struggled in the past, requiring supporters to remember to give each time they spend money online. This provided the inspiration to create a technology that would require no change in online behaviour from supporters. We wanted to develop an application that is really discreet and just runs in the background of the user’s browser. And that’s exactly what we’ve done.

Special characteristics

Give as you Live™ enables charity supporters to raise additional unrestricted income, at no cost to them or their charity. The app is free to use and is also quick and easy to download. It runs discreetly in the background of your browser, requiring little to no change in online behaviour. The Give as you Live™ app plays an integral role in giving a charity supporter a convenient and easy way to support their charity every day, without changing their online behaviour.

Influence / impact

We are really starting to see results as more charities come on board and supporters hear about the app through word of mouth. For us, we will always be striving to achieve more. Even once we get all online shoppers using the tool, we’ll then seek to encourage high street shoppers to buy online. It’s a good deed anyone can do every day to raise funds for their charity, at no extra cost to them.

Results

Give as you Live™ exceeded expectations during its pilot phase with 7.3 per cent of active shoppers on target to exceed £75 per annum raised for charity this year and a smaller percentage on target to exceed over £500 raised. The largest amount so far raised in a single transaction was £70, through the purchase of a year’s subscription to Sky. The app has nearly 4,000 users testing it and 300 charities benefiting. Currently over 1,200 retailers participate, such as British Airways, John Lewis, Tesco, iTunes, and lastminute.com

Merits

Give as you Live™ enables charities, for the first time, to make the most of online shopping. The plug & play technology requires very little resource or time to set up and run. Using the application requires no change in online behaviour and fits the demands of today’s supporters. Put simply, the app unlocks a free untapped, additional revenue stream for charities.