Oxfam announce a slump in donations
Oxfam have today revealed the implications of the recession on its shops as it reported that donations have fallen by 12% this year.
Despite this blow, sales in its network of 714 shops remain strong – up 5% on last year – as the credit crunch also means demand for donated goods remains high.
Over 80% of Oxfam’s total income from its shops comes from donations of clothes, books, music, homeware and other goods.
But with less people moving house the charity has witnessed a huge plummet in donations of household items such as, crockery, china, glass and curtains, which are down by 7% so far this year, while furniture donations have dropped by 13%.
Clothing donations would have been down by 8% had it not been for an extra 900,000 donations resulting from a partnership scheme with Marks & Spencer, which incentivises people to take in their unwanted M&S clothing in exchange for a £5 voucher.
The decline in donations clearly denotes wider trends resulting from the credit crunch: families begin to budget and buy less, which means they replace less and therefore have less to pass on to charity shops.
The charity warned that the 12% fall in donations so far could mean 1.2m fewer items are available to sell this year.
Oxfam’s director of trading, David McCullough, said: “The £20m profit made by our shops last year would be enough to fund all of Oxfam’s work in DR Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Somalia for a year. But we can’t sell fresh air, and [the shops] of course rely on the generosity of the public for their stock.
“Without continued donations of everything from clothing to cookware, Oxfam shops could not continue to play such a key role in communities across the UK.”
The worst-hit areas for donations include North Yorkshire, north London, Nottinghamshire, Devon and Cornwall. The West Midlands, Tyneside, Teesside and south Wales, are a few of the areas fairing well, in spite of the economic climate.
However, Oxfam does not stand alone, other leading charity shops said they were also feeling the pinch. A spokeswoman for Cancer Research UK said: “We’re in a similar situation. While we know, anecdotally, that footfall has increased, we are in desperate need of stock to sell. We have found that donations to our shops have dropped significantly.”
The British Heart Foundation, which has 580 shops selling clothing, books, DVDs, CDs, toys and bric-a-brac, and more than 60 BHF furniture and electrical stores, said it had experienced a similar slump in donations.
Popularity: 4% [?]
