There’s some interesting news out of the UK today. Britain’s biggest fashion Retailer - Marks & Spencer - has teamed up with Oxfam in an effort to reduce the 1 million tonnes of clothing that end up in UK landfills every year, by encouraging people to give their used, unwanted clothes to Oxfam.

For each bag of clothes that is given to Oxfam that contains at least one item of M&S clothing (non-underwear / lingerie / sock /hosiery / swimwear), a £5 voucher, good for one month for purchases over £35 will be given. This is a great idea. It gets M&S branded as a caring company, one that helps out nonprofits and one that cares about the environment. It also drives people into their stores to purchase new items of clothing. It will probably work out cheaper for them than just giving a lump sum to Oxfam, and it will generate more publicity for them as people who are personally affected may write / blog about the gift voucher system, generating links to their site.

Nicely done M&S, and if your company would like to partner with some nonprofits, we can most assuredly put you in touch with some.

Filed under: Non-Profits on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 by Simon Heseltine |
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