Pennies Marks 15 Years Of Impact, Celebrating £75m In Micro-Donations

• Iceland Foods, B&Q, Acrelec UK, and Verifone among the winners at the 6th Pennies Awards 

Pennies, the UK’s leading micro-donation charity, this week marked its 15th anniversary with its annual Autumn Celebration Event in London, recognising the individuals and partners driving progress across the micro-donation movement.  

Held in central London and attended by over 150 leaders from retail, hospitality, payments and technology, the event celebrated Pennies’ growing community of partners – and highlighted its collective social impact to date: over 300 million micro-donations raised, delivering more than £75 million for over 1,100 UK charities.  

2025 Pennies Award Winners: 

The 6th annual Pennies Awards honoured both organisations and individuals who have gone above and beyond to integrate, scale and champion micro-donations across their customer experience. 

• The Merchant Impact Award was presented to Iceland Foods, recognised for its rapid rollout across 1,000 stores, outstanding conversion rates and exceptional store engagement. 

• The Technology Impact Award went to Acrelec UK, awarded for moving Pennies into a new sector with an innovative kiosk solution and transforming the customer experience to deliver a tenfold increase in donations. 

• The Partnership Breakthrough Award was won by B&Q, recognised for delivering a gold-standard launch that set a new benchmark for partnership excellence and accelerated donation growth at remarkable scale. 

• The Outstanding Achievement Award was awarded to Verifone, for pioneering Pennies’ first Android solution and for its long-standing, unwavering partnership supporting major deployments across multiple retailers. 

• The Unsung Hero Awards recognised Andrew Williamson (Gatwick), Atena Cozens (Screwfix), Martyn Kendrick-Bott (Verifone), and Rhiannon Etheridge, Emma Wells and Heather Hartley (Worldpay’s Marketing Team), for their behind-the-scenes efforts to accelerate and support the Pennies micro-donation movement.

Panel Discussion: How Retail and Hospitality are Delivering on Social Impact   

The event included a live panel discussion hosted by reporter and presenter, Sally Bundock, featuring senior leaders from three major UK brands: 

• Sarah Barron, Chief Marketing Officer, Domino’s 

• Paddy Earnshaw, Retail, Property & Technology Director, B&Q

• Sophie Rycroft, Group ESG, Sourcing & Quality Director, Debenhams Group 

Together, the panel explored consumer confidence, the growing need to differentiate, and how business can deliver on a broader social purpose. 

Sarah Barron commented: 
“The reality is that the Pennies' mission is still as live in Domino’s today as it was back then 15 years ago. It enables us to do the things that really matter to us. It enables us to support the charities that mean a huge amount [to us], like Teenage Cancer Trust.”  

Paddy Earnshaw added: 
“[Pennies] is the most ubiquitous and accessible way to make a difference to people in the UK and for us that makes a very, very compelling story for 25,000 colleagues. That would be the big difference for Pennies for me.”  

Sophie Rycroft said: 
“We didn’t realise the impact [Pennies] would have socially across our shareholders, our senior leadership team, our staff. They’re so proud to talk about it as colleagues, and that’s amazing because we’re ticking every box – we’re doing an amazing thing for these charities.”  

Survey Insights: Giving Behaviours Evolving, Not Declining:

During the event, Pennies shared early insights from its latest UK-wide consumer survey, conducted by Sapio Research. The full research report will be released in December 2025. 

Alison Hutchinson CBE, CEO of Pennies, said: 

“When we conducted our research just last month, it said, still, the most preferred way to give is little and often, and believe it or not, the top preferred way of giving is still dropping coins in a charity box. The problem is no one can do it. Rounding up at checkout, doing digital micro-donations, for the second year is now the third preferred way of giving, so we hope that that movement of behaviour from cash to digital is well on its way.  

“As we celebrate 15 years and £75 million, I looked forward and thought: what would the next 15 years look like? What if together we could help it grow by 10% every year? [In] 15 years' time, 2040, together we’d raise half a billion pounds’ worth of money for the UK charity sector. I’d just like to invite you to join my dream and see if it would be possible. Like everything at Pennies, it’s a choice - it’s your choice if you want to join this movement. I just hope the answer is ‘yes’.” 

Source : Pennies

Image : Pennies

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