Scrap and used-car prices have seen massive fluctuations over the last decade and of course that means donation values have followed suit. Whether average funds raised have been high or low, the same message has always comes from each of our Charity Car Official Partners – they are hugely grateful for every single one of your old car donations and every penny counts!
The good news has been that this last year has seen a massive increase in the value of average car donations although that is of course matched by a huge increase in the costs charities face. In light of these increased figures, we thought you’d be interested to find out what some of our wonderful charity partners can do with your donations now!
You may be surprised to read what incredible things even smaller donation amounts can achieve and how far those larger sums go…
£25 is just a fraction of any car donation we’ve passed on to a good cause over this last 12 months, but even that small figure can have a big impact.
In the safe hands of Pump Aid, £25 could pay for a farmers’ club to receive a whole day’s irrigation training. Effective irrigation means that farmers that would otherwise face a challenging dry season spanning months, can grow and harvest their crops all year round, giving them food security and improved livelihoods as they are able to sell surplus for profit. That £25 could go a long way!
£50 may still seem like a low sum, but it’s still a significant figure for three of our charity partners. Go Beyond is a fantastic organisation that provides free respite breaks to disadvantaged children from all over the UK. £50 enables Go Beyond to pay for children to have their first rock climbing experience, instilling confidence and self-belief – an important part of their breaks while having much needed fun.
Then there’s The Cotswolds Dogs & Cats Home, which is focused on providing welfare for local animals. Each year this fantastic charity cares for and finds homes for approximately 300 animals. £50 can pay for the cost of feeding a cat or dog such as Winnie pictured here, for an entire month. Winnie the puppy is a current resident at The Cotswold’s Dogs & Cats Home who has a broken front leg, which will sadly need to be amputated.
Emmaus UK is working to end homelessness by providing stable homes and meaningful work for as long as it’s needed, because Emmaus knows that people need more than a roof over their head. £75 could pay for two people, like the Emmaus Cambridge Companions pictured here, to take their driving theory test, which could lead to employment – helping people to regain their self-esteem and find a positive way to move forward with their lives.
This figure is a milestone donation for many charities and we have three wonderful examples from Official Charity Car Partners who can put £100 to very good use!
Image credit: Colin Wilkinson
The RSPB can use £100 to support the restoration of 400sqm of Scottish rainforest, a damp and humid temperate woodlands, which is a vital home for many rare and endangered species. Without intervention, grazing and invasive, non-native species threaten the loss of this land.
Photo Credit © WaterAid / Nana Kofi Acquah
Good hygiene practices are essential to a healthy life, but encouraging people to change their habits can be challenging. Water Aid could use £100 to run a pre/post-natal hygiene session for 30 women in Sierra Leone, helping mothers to make lasting changes to their hygiene habits that will improve their families’ chances of a healthy future.
£200 could pay towards a state-of-the-art microscope that will allow Alzheimer’s Research UK scientists to study the behaviour of cells in real time, providing a window into the diseases that cause dementia and shedding new light on ways to stop them.
Photo Credit © David Severn / British Red Cross
British Red Cross is one of the most widely recognised symbols of aid, and is part of the largest humanitarian and volunteer network in the world, responding to conflicts, natural disasters and individual emergencies. This charity helps people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are. £200 in their hands could buy a spare set of clothes for a vulnerable family of four, after they have lost everything in a fire or flood.
So, all the amazing work you’ve read about so far and we’ve not even reached the average scrap car donation we pass on to our charity partners! That ‘average’ is currently over £300 but this sum, can do amazing things all on its own!
SOS Children’s Villages can use £300 to holistically support a young person for six months at the Youth Training and Employability Project in The Gambia. This includes placement fees, entrepreneurship training, materials, graduation ceremonies, nationally accredited examination, health and rights knowledge and info and a mentorship programme.
£300 enables The Haven Wolverhampton to take 150 helpline calls from women in desperate need of their support. This wonderful charity receives around 30 calls a day, which cost just £2 a call. Funding from just one current average old car donation could ensure many women have a voice at the end of the phone when they need urgent help, advice or just a sense of unloading and talking to someone for possibly the first time about their abuse.
Charity Car also works with a fantastic charity called Alex TLC, which offers support and information to all those affected by Leukodystrophies, which are genetic disorders primarily affecting the central nervous system (the brain or spinal cord). The majority are degenerative and untreatable, with symptoms such as impaired mobility, vision, speech and hearing, incontinence, inability to swallow and loss of cognitive skills. £300 could fund a grant to enable someone with leukodystrophy to access vital equipment or therapies not available on the NHS. This is Ruairi with a specialist bike Alex TLC helped to fund.
The inquisitive gaze of an Amur Leopard Photo Credit © David Lawson / WWF-UK
£500 could pay for firefighting equipment to help WWF combat forest fires which have devastated Amur leopard habitat in the past. WWF is the world’s leading independent conservation organisation. Well known for its pioneering work to safeguard iconic wildlife like pandas and tigers, this global network actually works on a much bigger scale, helping to create solutions to the most important environmental challenges facing the planet.
£1000 is a sum that is often seen passed on to a charity partner when we’ve been able to auction a car donation with some life left in it. Generous supporters love to see their old wheels make a real difference to causes close to their heart and £1000 can certainly make a difference to every charity we partner.
One of those charities is Make A Wish UK, which transforms the lives of desperately ill children by granting their One True Wish. £1000 could help fulfill two of those precious wishes! Such as buying a tablet for a child who simply wishes to stay in contact with their friends while they are having treatment in hospital, and VIP Hospitality tickets to a Premiership football match after only being able to watch them on TV during years of treatment.
While we all hope there’s plenty of value in your old donated car, as you can clearly see, a huge amount of good work can be done with smaller sums. We’ve given you just a few examples from our charity partners and there are so many more ways your old car can help. From supporting people in crisis to helping fund environmental projects, your old banger can have a big impact whichever cause you choose to support.
See all our Charity Partners who you can donate your car to >
Whenever your car has reached the end of its life with you, let us know – we can’t wait to help it change another life for the better.
