The Charity Retail Consultancy

09/10/2026

🚨 Calling all Hospices 🚨

📣 Make your voice heard and contribute to this fantastic project seeking to support hospice fundraisers, income generation professionals and the wider hospice community

💜 Your feedback matters! Rebs & Serena's survey is live!

Please complete the survey here (10 mins): www.hospice-ign.org.uk/news

Rebs and Serena will be familiar faces to some (many!) of you. With your feedback, they are helping to shape the future of hospice fundraising and marketing.

As a national community of hospice fundraisers and income generation professionals, HIGN is committed to strengthening collaboration, professional development and sector support across the UK.

To ensure our work continues to meet the needs of our members and the wider hospice community, we have commissioned Rebs and Serena to lead a comprehensive stakeholder engagement project.

The project involves gathering insight from a broad range of stakeholders including:

✅ Current and lapsed HIGN members
✅ Wider income generation professionals
✅ Platinum partners and commercial organisations
✅ Trainers, speakers and subject specialists
✅ Current and former trustees
✅ Relevant sector bodies and influencers

Through surveys, interviews, workshops or focus groups, the project will help us understand what the sector needs most — and how HIGN can evolve to support it in our next three-year strategy.

06/10/2026

Scotland has given us Irn-Bru. Now it’s given us Billy. 😂

If you haven’t caught our first episode of Season 2 yet, here’s one reason to give it a listen…

Billy Farrell from Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland told us:

💬 “There’s a lot of assumptions in the charity retail world that donors and customers aren’t the same people.”

But their loyalty scheme is showing that of the 18,000 people signed up, 50% are also donating stock.

So are we thinking about charity shop customers and donors in the right way?

Billy joins us to talk loyalty and customer data, as well as delving into charity shops in the metaverse

🎧 Listen to Season 2, Episode 1 now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube.

01/10/2026

It's Gift Aid Awareness Day! To celebrate, we are offering 10% off Gift Aid training days booked and paid for in October and delivered by the end of March 2027.

How confident are you that your retail teams are making the most of Gift Aid?

With the national charity retail benchmark at 38.6%, even a small improvement in Gift Aid conversion can make a real difference to the income generated through your shops, but knowing your conversion rate is only part of the picture.

💡 Are teams consistently asking?
💡 Are they explaining Gift Aid confidently and accurately?
💡 Are opportunities being missed at the till or when donations are received?
💡 Does good practice vary from shop to shop?

Our Mystery Shops also give you an independent view of what’s actually happening across your shops, while our training helps teams build the knowledge and confidence to improve performance so book them together to maximise your team's learning.

If your Gift Aid conversion is below the benchmark or you simply want to understand where there may be opportunities to improve, get in touch.
Let’s make more of the donations already coming through your charity shops.

# GiftAidAwarenessDay

01/10/2026

It's Gift Aid Awareness Day!

How confident are you that your retail teams are making the most of Gift Aid?

With the national charity retail benchmark at 38.6%, even a small improvement in Gift Aid conversion can make a real difference to the income generated through your shops, but knowing your conversion rate is only part of the picture.

💡 Are teams consistently asking?
💡 Are they explaining Gift Aid confidently and accurately?
💡 Are opportunities being missed at the till or when donations are received?
💡 Does good practice vary from shop to shop?

To mark Gift Aid Awareness Day, we are offering 10% off Gift Aid training days booked and paid for in October and delivered by the end of March 2027.

Our Mystery Shops also give you an independent view of what’s actually happening across your shops, while our training helps teams build the knowledge and confidence to improve performance so book them together to maximise your team's learning.

If your Gift Aid conversion is below the benchmark or you simply want to understand where there may be opportunities to improve, get in touch.
Let’s make more of the donations already coming through your charity shops

30/09/2026

🎙️ Season 2 of the Charity Shop Chat podcast is finally here!

And we’re kicking things off with Billy Farrell, Director of Income Generation at Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland

We talk about CHSS’s loyalty scheme, what they’re learning from customer data and how those insights could help shape the future of charity retail.

We also get into innovation and the fascinating subject of charity shops in the metaverse. 👀

🎧 Season 2, Episode 1 is out now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

And this season, we’ll be bringing you new episodes every other week.

22/09/2026

🚨Last chance to take part in our fantastic Gift Aid webinar tomorrow🚨

Our tutor and attendees are gearing up and getting ready for the 2 day training session. Looking to join us? There is still time!

Make a last minute booking on the webinar and we will squeeze you in to make sure you do not miss one of our most popular and favourite live sessions.

Book via here https://charityretaillearning.com/product/gift-aid-for-retail-leads-back-office-teams-23rd-24th-september-2026 or get in touch at [email protected]. We look forward to seeing you there!

21/09/2026

🚨 SEASON 2 IS COMING! 🎙️

We’re back on 30th September with a brand new season of The Charity Shop Chat Podcast, and we’re kicking things off with Billy from Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland

Billy joins us to talk about some of the brilliant innovation happening across CHSS retail, from their approach to loyalty schemes to exploring what charity retail could look like in the metaverse 👀

Season 2 will bring you more big ideas, brilliant people and honest conversations from across charity retail, with new episodes every two weeks.

We’ve got some VERY exciting guests and topics lined up and we cannot wait to share them with you.

🎧 Season 2 starts 30th September

Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

Who’s ready?! 🙌

16/09/2026

Missing the podcast? 👀🎙️

While we get ready for Season 2, why not revisit some of your favourite Charity Shop Chat episodes from Season 1?

Here are our current Top 5… have you listened to them all?

Season 2 lands 30 September ❤️

15/09/2026

⭐ Free places available for CRL Subscribers ⭐

🧠 With only 2 days left to go we cannot wait for this exciting and important webinar session partnered with The Donaldson Trust!

📅 Neurodivergence is a part of everyday life, both inside and outside of charity shops. To make sure you’re offering the best experience for all your staff, volunteers, donors and customers, join us on our webinar at 10am on September 17th.

⏰ Our joining instructions have already went out, but there is still time to book now and secure a place before Thursday. We can't wait to see you all there!

Every charity shop includes neurodivergent people. Is your team ready? Do any of these statements sound familiar to you? "I'm struggling to recruit volunteers." "One of my managers doesn't know how to support a team member." "I don't want to say the wrong thing." "How do I make our shops welcoming f...

14/09/2026

⏰ The clock is ticking for this fantastic Associate Director of Retail role with Arthur Rank Hospice Charity. Apply before Wednesday 16th September to secure your application and be considered for the role!

Have any vacancies your charity would like to share? Get in touch at [email protected]

Whether you’re looking for Shop Managers, Area Managers, eCommerce Managers, specialists, Directors of Retail or any other team member – we have a great network of connections and lots of recruitment experience.