My experience of using The Giving Machine

Shop at many of your favourite stores & give to NRAS every time!

If you shop on the internet, The Giving Machine is an excellent way to do it and to benefit NRAS.  Many of the most familiar high street names are featured on the website and more are joining regularly.

This innovative scheme is easy to use, inexpensive to run and takes advantage of the rapid growth in internet use.  Best of all, it’s free for both the shoppers and the beneficiaries.  TheGiving Machine is a ‘not for profit’ organisation and registered member of the Institute of Fundraising.  It operates ethically and transparently, adhering to the Institutes’ best practices and should appeal to anybody who shops online.

Well, I gave it a try.  After typing www.thegivingmachine.co.uk into my search engine, I clicked on ‘Givers Join Here’, followed instructions and selected the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society from the list of charities.  The Giving Machine is now shown in a quick-click bar at the top of my search engine homepage and I can go there instantly whenever I intend to shop online.  (Gosh, that sounds as though I know something about computers.  I’m pretty incompetent but it really was easy.  As I live in a relatively rural area, I’m a regular online shopper with a particular weakness for Marks & Spencer’s clothing, for example.  Instead of typing in retailers' website addresses when I want to browse their stock, I visit them via The Giving Machine, select my choices and pay in the usual way. Nothing is different.

The list of participating companies is impressive – 16 pages of popular national retailers, including some of the major supermarkets and even eBay.  Shopping in this way doesn’t cost me a penny but it’s an easy way to do what I’d be doing anyway in the knowledge that NRAS will benefit.  Go on ....... have a go!

If you have any questions about shopping online via The Giving Machine please contact Ruth, Online & Social Media Coordinator at NRAS. Call 0845 458 3969 or email Ruth.