Not All Heroes Wear Pants

Curve News and Updates
#1

We have partnered with Mastercard to create a social campaign with the aim of raising £100,000 for food banks in the UK – money that’s needed now more than ever. The objective is to motivate people to donate from their couch, bath, bedroom or bunker.

What’s the idea?

We know the real heroes in this pandemic wear scrubs, but every single one of us still can be part of a heroic effort in these unprecedented batshit crazy times.

No cape needed.

No mask.

Heck, you don’t even need pants.

#notallheroeswearpants is a social campaign designed to empower the powerless, and motivate ordinary people to help when they’re feeling at their most helpless. Because going nowhere doesn’t mean doing nothing. A small donation becomes a big deal when enough people are mobilised to take action.

The campaign will be executed through a montage of photographs, GIFs, and boomerangs that convey the message that you can do something good, while doing nothing at all.

  • Donating at the fridge, contemplating snack no. 2472455
  • Donating in the bath, while on a zoom call with mates
  • Donating while you watch your dinner heat up in the microwave
  • Donating while your clay face mask dries
  • Donating just before you fall into a deep nap at 2pm
  • Donating while you “continue watching” Netflix for the 11th hour

Campaign Page

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Curve Product Update June 2020
Corona Crisis Cashback
#6
#7

Pretty much all Tussel Trust Foodbank have their bank details on their website - if you make a donation this way your local foodbank will get 100% of the money, today… otherwise mastercard take at least a 6% fee and don’t release the funds right away.

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#8

Well, at least they’re trying to do something, everyone complain when it’s about donating but I don’t see anyone doing anything to make things better. Neither 10£, 100£, 1.000£, 10.000£, 100.000£ nor a million pounds will fix the world, but less gives a rock.

Any proof about that 6% MaterCard’s surcharge?

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#9

From the terms on the site:

The donation less standard card processing fees will be paid directly to the applicable Charity at the end of the campaign or once the target has been reached, if earlier. The Charities have agreed to benefit from the visibility of this activity and will pay a 6% administration fee on total donations collected at the end of the relevant campaign to cover the cost of the service.

So sounds like it’s 6% + card fees

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#10

So people are profiting from this exercise? Are Curve matching donations or covering the costs somehow? Is Gift Aid even available? I must be missing something here.

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#11

I don’t get it.
I think you thought this was a “we are doing the right thing” and using our mailing list to encourage charitable giving.
It looks way more like you are piggybacking on a crisis for free marketing?

You want to match donations? Then it feels like you have cause. Otherwise seriously question how your management team are this blind.

(First post, long time lurker and customer)

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#12

Hello @DanG, @podgib and @heaters.
Feel free to do what you want! Nobody is forcing you to do it. Also, I would like to tell you not to be negative, I don’t see why. If Curve chose to take this action, I think they did it in the best way.

Regards.

#13

I don’t think there’s anything negative about answering someone’s request for proof with an excerpt from the T&Cs.

For what it’s worth, I do think this is a good thing if it drives donations. They could have used a better platform, but anything that drives donations is better than nothing. Personally I donated directly to the Trussell Trust, but this marketing push did influence that, so it’s a net positive.

#14

To me it sounds like:

  • The campaign reaches a lot more people thanks to Mastercard and its prestige

  • The food bank gets much more money

  • Mastercard is offering a service for a fee, free of cost to the food bank as it will be covered with the donations. They also save money using MasterCard’s service

  • When donating to the food bank directly they’re also paying to many of their workers (they of course need them) and not all of them are volunteers, they also deduce it from Government subventions or the total of the donation campaign, if there’s someone that thinks this is not true… big mistake

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#15

Yes, as I say, it’s a net good. To be clear, though, it’s not MasterCard that’s charging the 6% for their prestige, it’s a Spanish company called Worldcoo that it seems the donation system has been outsourced to.

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#16

I agree. The lack of Gift Aid would be disappointing - but charities use services like this because they are effective in driving donations from people they would otherwise not reach.

Given that users here are (generally) financially savvy, I only wanted to point out that people could chose to donate directly - boosting their donation and having an immediate effect.

6% on a £10 donation would put 2 packets of instant mashed potato (which I mention as its something I often donate to my local food bank!) on somebody’s table, rather than 60p more on a Worldcoo’s balance sheet.

People can and of course should make their own decisions and feel good for helping out either way - for putting food one someone’s table.

@Curve_Marie - it would be extremely classy of Curve to cover the fees on this, what do you say?

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#17

Are curve taking a cut of the 6% fee?

#18

The fee is for WorldCoo, who run the site, process donations, send confirmation emails, etc and that’s what the cost is for. WorldCoo charge the charities themselves. The charities agree to this fee because they’re paying for the visibility, reach, and marketing that is provided.

Whilst covering the fee is something that we’d loved to do for a great cause like this, like nearly every business that isn’t Zoom or Amazon, Covid-19 has affected us too and we simply weren’t in a position to justify matching donations or covering the fee at this time.

What we did have was a talented creative team, and a few friends in high places (MasterCard) so we decided to create a platform to try to do the best we could with what we had.

We hope that you understand - stay safe and feel free to drop us a message if you have any other questions.

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#19

I don’t understand the slogan “Not All Heroes Wear Pants”, despite being a native English speaker. What is the relevance of underwear? Am I missing something?

#20

@NFH Typically superheroes wear tights or “pants”, this is more of the saying you don’t need to if you want to be a hero :smile:

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#21

Indeed - think superman, etc.

As with almost everything - there’s a YouTube video discussing it! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOhQlqrp2oM

#22

Congratulations on raising over £2000 for an excellent cause! I know lockdown 2.0 has put extra pressure on foodbanks.

Is this now closed / paid to the charities? Not sure there have been any new donations in a while and not seen it being plugged on social media.

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#23

Just wanted to tag @Curve_Marie and @Hannah for an official response here. Having looked at the terms, the money is basically on hold until either the campaign is closed, or you hit the original goal.

Given that the last plugging of this on Twitter was back in June, isn’t this effectively over? The donations have pretty much tailed off now, I think?

If you’re not going to push for more donations, isn’t now a good time to wrap things up and send the funds to the good causes?

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#24

Hey @DanG, firstly thank you for your congratulations, we’re thrilled to have raised so much :partying_face: Our team are working on this with Mastercard at the moment - I’ll report back once I have a further update!