Zizzi rolls out Pennies across all its restaurants

Italian restaurant chain, Zizzi, rolls out Pennies, the electronic charity box, to its nationwide network of 118 restaurants to raise more money for charity, The Prince’s Trust. This follows the success of a trial in a small number of venues which began last December.

Customers visiting the restaurant chain who pay for their meal by card have the choice to top up their bill by 20p.  Every one of the extra pennies given 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 ten UK people related charities*.  To date Zizzi customers have made more than 16,000 donations; that figure is expected to rise sharply as the scheme extends to the whole network.  It is not only Zizzi customers contributing to The Prince’s Trust, the restaurant chain already offer work placements to young people as part of a longer term partnership.

The Prince’s Trust is currently celebrating 35 years of changing young people’s lives. Last year it gave financial and practical support to over 46,000 young people to promote the development of key skills, confidence and motivation to help them move into work, education or training.

In addition to Zizzi, Pennies is available online with Domino’s Pizza and Travelodge, and on the high street through The Entertainer’s toy shop chain.  Since launching late last year, 600,000 consumer donations have been received in total through Pennies, raising £40,000 for a total of 18 UK charities.   The majority of the individual donations have been 10p or less, demonstrating how pennies can add up. Technology partner Ingenico, the world’s leading provider of payment solutions, has played a key role in the expansion of the scheme by integrating the ‘Pennies solution’ into one of Ingenico’s market leading mobile Chip and PIN payment terminals.

Commenting on the expansion of Zizzi’s partnership with Pennies, Helen Jones, Managing Director of Zizzi,said: “We are delighted to be working with Pennies and raising more money for our charity partner, The Prince’s Trust. 20p is a small amount to give, but it will make a huge difference to disadvantaged youth if all our customers contribute, we really hope they’ll choose to get involved and donate a few extra pennies.”

Martina Milburn, Chief Executive of The Prince’s Trust said: “The Prince’s Trust is proud to be working with The Pennies Foundation on this innovative idea, which has the potential to change the way that people donate to charity on a regular basis. Small change can blossom into significant funds and we hope the public will be as excited by this idea as we are.”

Alison Hutchinson, CEO of The Pennies Foundation, added: “We’re excited at the pace of Pennies development.  It is fantastic to see the role out of the Pennies solution to the entire network of Zizzi restaurants. We hope that Zizzi’s customers enjoying a meal there will choose to top-up to help improve a young life.  Card use is on the rise, last year, £26 billion** more was spent using debit cards than using notes and coins.  The death of cash is not around the corner, but we want to harness the growing power of the card, and Pennies makes that possible.   It lets consumers make a real difference, through giving a little to charity by card in the same way that we’ve traditionally dropped coins into a collecting tin.”