Media Release
The COP 26 climate summit highlighted the urgent sustainability challenges our planet is facing. Time is of the essence and everyone needs to act - waiting for nations to implement their plans is simply not going to be enough.
With the introduction of the Copalana Gift-of-Giving Service, everyone can participate and get involved in the Sustainable Development Goals. The innovative approach enables both givers and recipients to actively contribute.
Horw 26/11/2021
The Copalana Gift-of-Giving service is the latest offering from the growing social-impact platform. Companies and private individuals can buy personalized gift cards of any value for their friends, family, employees, customers and business partners and thus get involved in meaningful projects.
“In contrast to traditional gift donations, the recipients can decide for themselves where their donation should go," says Paul Ryatt, founder of Copalana.
The recipient of the gift can support projects and non-profits that are aligned with themes that they care about most - for example environment, education and justice. Copalana wants to inspire a new generation of socially conscious thinkers and doers.
With just a few clicks, users can create an individual gift card and even integrate their own pictures. The personalized card can be sent automatically by email on a selected date or printed at home and handed over personally.
Whether as a personal present for Christmas or as a way to thank customers and business partners for their trust. Copalana gift cards are a great way to support meaningful initiatives and thus, make a direct contribution to overcoming the problems of our planet.
Fast Growing Social-Impact Platform
Since its launch in 2017, Copalana's unique digital ecosystem connects employees, companies and non-profits. The ecosystem caters for socially-conscious businesses who want to engage their employees and give back to local and global communities. The Tech-for-Good platform is available free-of-charge to non-profit organizations and private individuals who want to make a difference.
Copalana's crowdfunding platform makes it easy for employees and private individuals to start campaigns and collect donations for charitable organizations. The platform does not charge any commissions or fees for the funds raised. The digital volunteer marketplace connects employees, companies and non-profits with one another in order to anchor social commitment as an integral part of Swiss corporate culture.
Credit Suisse, founding and lead partner, provided seed funding for the development of the open and independent platform and uses the services worldwide to engage its employees. The innovation partner Migros-Pioneer-Fund supports Copalana in scaling the platform across Switzerland. UBS is piloting the Volunteer Marketplace and offers skills-based volunteering to their employees in Switzerland.
The Copalana success story so far:
- 586 non-profit projects
- 314 user-driven campaigns
- 19’504 users and donors
- 4,939,632 CHF raised
Benefits of the Gift-of-Giving service:
- Creating, giving, and receiving the personalized cards is a simple, intuitive, and fun
- Recipients can choose the social-impact projects they’re most passionate about and receive status updates from the non-profits
- Service is free-of-charge for non-profit and individuals. Other than the credit card fee, the entire amount of the gift card goes directly to worthy causes and the Copalana charges zero fees
- Non-profits will issue a tax receipt and the gift amount may be tax deductible in your region
