​Job done after tongue-in-cheek award forces retailers to donate more to charity

The Scrooge Award for retailers has been scrapped – due to its success in making shops give more to charities.

Run by the Charities Advisory Trust (CAT), the award was given to retailers that give the least amount to charity from charity Christmas cards.

CAT now says the vast majority of retailers responded positively to the award and made them boost their donations.

Over past years the campaign received widespread coverage, including questions in parliament, and forced retailers to increase their contributions to a minimum of 10% to charity.

According to the trust’s director Dame Hilary Blume it has proven so effective there will be no Scrooge Award because “the battle has been won”.

“Now retailers are vying for the Good Fairy award, for the most amount going to charity, and amounts have mounted to 25%,” she said. “We knocked them into shape; it’s been a very powerful campaign.

“It’s nice to see something work. We estimate that the Scrooge Awards mean literally millions of additional pounds were raised for charity.”

However Blume said the campaign had not succeeded in persuading the government to introduce a statutory minimum for amounts cited as “for charity” in corporate marketing campaigns.

“You can’t call a pie a meat pie if it’s only got 1% meat in it, so why should you be able to call something a charity campaign if only 1% goes to charity?” she said.

“There is a need for legislation to set a minimum level of contribution whenever anyone sells anything in aid of charity.”