After the government’s announcement on Saturday 31st October, Cards for Good Causes, the UK’s largest charity Christmas card retailer, will sadly be forced to close its shop doors in England this Thursday. In the past few weeks, we have opened over 150 Christmas pop-up shops throughout the UK to get the festive season under way and raise vital funds for charity.  

The Cards for Good Causes team have worked incredibly hard over the last month including many thousands of volunteers who have given up their valuable time to get shops ready. November is our key month and this year we were on target to raise a staggering £1 million in November. To lose this is devastating for the whole Cards for Good Causes team and the hundreds of charities that we support.

We are a not-for-profit organisation and have a huge selection of charity Christmas cards and seasonal gifts with 100% of our proceeds going back to local and national charities - that’s at least 70p in every £1 taken from the sale of cards which is a much higher proportion than most other retailers. In the past ten years, Cards for Good Causes has given over £40 million to the charities it partners with. It represents more than 250 charities including Cancer Research UK, Barnardo’s, Alzheimer’s Society and RNLI as well as a number of small local charities.

Our shops will be open over the next few days until the lockdown comes into force in England on Thursday. Shoppers will also be able to go to www.cardsforcharity.org.uk and choose from hundreds of different Christmas card designs, as well as traditional advent calendars and candles, wrapping paper, gift tags, napkins and stocking fillers. This way, we hope to still support charities in this very difficult year.

Jeremy Lune, CEO, for Cards for Good Causes said: “Buying charity Christmas cards is one of the simplest ways to support good causes this festive season and we stock one of the widest ranges of Christmas cards anywhere. The proceeds from every card or product sold make a vital contribution to the work of the charities that we support. It has been hugely devastating to see this taken away from us during our peak Christmas trading period but we still have our online shop and the team are remaining positive. We are currently looking at a number of alternative ways to ensure that we can still serve our customers and raise those vital funds that our charities so desperately need this year more than ever.”

Anita Bates, Director of Cards for Good Causes and Director of Marketing & Fundraising for Perennial, the charity helping people in horticulture, said “Closing Cards for Good Causes Christmas pop-up shops is a cruel blow for the charity sector. Smaller and less well-known charities like Perennial rely heavily on the sales of Christmas Cards to raise funds but also awareness so more people can benefit from the support they offer. Hopefully customers will show their support by purchasing their cards through www.cardsforcharity.org.uk and ensuring that they can continue to raise funds and awareness for so many worthwhile causes.”

Our Edinburgh shop in Scotland remains open at St John's Church, Princes Street, Edinburgh EH2 4BJ.