News Release
25th August, 2006
Molins UK Pension Fund offers its pensioners a new way of charitable giving to the Alzheimer’s Society
Do you know how many pennies were on your pension this month? If not then why not donate them to charity? That is exactly what Molins UK Pension Fund has done and from July all Molins pensioners have been given the opportunity to join the Pennies from Heaven scheme. Pensioners can donate, on an ongoing basis, the pennies left on their pension to benefit the Alzheimer’s Society. Molins is the first occupational pension fund to join the scheme and hopes it will lead the way for more pension funds to do the same. The Alzheimer’s Society is the UK’s leading care and research charity for people with dementia, their families and carers.
To date other giving schemes have not been easily accessible to pensioners but Pennies from Heaven allows Pension Trusts to create a positive relationship with their pensioners by offering a scheme with a maximum donation of just £0.99 per month. The pennies do add up though as if every pensioner signed up over £17m per annum would be raised for the charity sector.
PFH is the UK’s fastest growing coin collection scheme. In its sixth year it now has many of the UK’s largest organisations benefiting from the scheme, such as Aviva, Barclays, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and the Virgin Group. To date the company has raised over £700,000 for a variety of charities through the simple mechanism of rounding down salaries to the nearest pound and donating the spare pennies (with gift aid) to charity.
Sally Soper, Secretary to Molins UK Pension Fund Trustee Ltd says, “I first read about the scheme in an article in NAPF news and immediately thought it was an excellent way of raising funds for charities. It has taken us many months to be able to offer the scheme to our pensioners as we wanted to ensure that our Trust Deed would permit the deduction from pension payments. I’m delighted it did and also of the wonderful response we have received to the scheme from our pensioners.”
Jo Swinhoe, Director of Fundraising at the Alzheimer's Society says, “We are delighted to have been chosen by Molins as the beneficiary of its Pennies from Heaven scheme. It's really exciting to be working with the first pension trust to offer this simple way to give to charity and we hope that many more pension trusts will be encouraged to take part too. Small donations really do add up to help us make a huge difference to the lives of people with dementia and their carers.”
For further information contact:
Kate Frost
Pennies from Heaven Fundraising Ltd
Phone: 0207 7464 4100
Email: k.frost@penniesfromheaven.co.uk
Website: www.penniesfromheaven.co.uk
Molins contact: Pensions@molins.com
Alzheimer's Society: www.alzheimers.org.uk.
