London,21th March - Zizzi’s introduction of micro-donation scheme Pennies, the electronic charity box, beat high profile IT solutions to be crowned project of the year at the 8th Real IT Awards. 

The awards, judged by senior IT players in Global, European and UK organisations, highlight achievements of Corporate IT in stimulating business success.  ‘Pennies with Zizzi’ was the category winner of Corporate, Social and Environmental Responsibility as well as overall winner.

The micro-donation scheme gives customers visiting the restaurant chain, who pay for their meal by card, the option to top up their bill by 20p.  Every one of the extra pennies goes to charity.  Of the money raised, 75% is given to Zizzi’s nominated charity, The Prince’s Trust. The remaining 25% is divided equally between other UK charities.  To date Zizzi customers have donated more than £50,000.  It is not only Zizzi customers contributing to The Prince’s Trust, the restaurant chain already offers work placements to young people as part of a wider partnership.

The Zizzi IT team led the implementation with support from the creators of Pennies,  The Pennies Foundation. Technology partner Ingenico, world leading provider of payment solutions, played a key role by integrating Pennies into the EFT930, Ingenico’s market leading mobile Chip & PIN payment terminal.

The judges complemented; “A real social benefit, true customer engagement from concept to delivery, internal and external partnership – what a neat idea!”

Alison Hutchinson, CEO, of The Pennies Foundation said: “We were excited to be shortlisted, particularly with such a high calibre of finalists, but to win overall is wonderful.  Thanks to the teams at both Zizzi and Ingenico. The generous donations of Zizzi’s customers have already added up to a significant amount for The Prince’s Trust. They are using this much needed money to make a real difference to young people’s lives” 

 Zizzi is in good company with Pennies’ other national partners which include Domino’s Pizza, Travelodge and The Entertainer toy shop chain.  The Pennies movement is building momentum with ten national retailers and many smaller merchants now live across many different retailing categories and channels giving more consumers the option to join in.  The response has been very positive with more than £450,000 raised from over 1.8 million individual donations.

-    ENDS -

 Notes to Editors:

For further information contact:
Liz Kearsley, The Pennies Foundation   
liz.kearsley@pennies.org.uk
Tel: 07814 047 175

About Pennies:

The Pennies Foundation, a registered charity, has created Pennies, the electronic charity box. We’re all familiar with the idea of dropping our change into the charity box sitting on the shop counter. The electronic charity box is exactly the same idea but it works instead when we pay by card in store, online and increasingly by mobile. That means that it works just as well for online or high-street shopping.

Pennies makes giving to charity easy and affordable for all: customers can simply press ‘YES’ on the Chip & PIN machine in-store, or click the ‘Donate’ button online.  The request is for micro-donations – literally a few pennies (1p-99p) - either by rounding up or topping up. The Pennies Foundation then ensures that all the donations are received and distributed to UK charities.

The retailer nominates the charity or charities to benefit from the majority of the amount collected with the remainder shared amongst other UK charities which cover a range of causes like cancer, children, homelessness and the elderly.

It’s quick: one small step in the payment process, it’s the consumers’ choice and it’s private too.  There’s no pressure or commitment to give and every penny goes to charity.  

Micro-donations are powerful. There are 43 million card holders in the UK today, and around 1 million card transactions an hour. If the UK’s card holders donated 30p once a month well over £150m would be raised for charity every year.

Pennies launched with its first retailer, Domino’s Pizza in November 2010. Since then Travelodge, Zizzi, The Entertainer, Rugby Football Union, Barracudas Kids Camps, GO Outdoors, Meatballs restaurant, Party Pieces, BuySpares and Contact Lenses Express have also adopted Pennies, with more retailers launching during 2012. Pennies is inclusive and welcomes retailers of any size or channel to join the Pennies’ movement.