Royal Trinity Hospice in Clapham Common successfully uses the fashion resale app, Depop, to raise money to fund its services.
The hospice is a charity which provides specialist palliative and end of life care free of charge, but must raise 9 million pounds annually to supplement the NHS funding it receives and maintain services.
Royal Trinity Hospice e-commerce manager Veronica Herranz, 45, is responsible for all the hospice’s online shops and runs the hospice’s Depop page with a team of volunteers.
Herranz said: “I have an amazing volunteer team. I’m really lucky. I’ve got volunteers who have been with me since I began.”
The team founded their Depop page two years ago in order to give the hospice a dedicated online fashion platform that would be accessible to all and appeal to a slightly younger audience than their pages on Asos Marketplace and Ebay.
Head of marketing and communications at Royal Trinity Hospice, Polly Balsom, 35, is passionate about the charity’s ability to champion sustainable fashion through its fundraising while also bringing people together.
Balsom said: “We keep using this phrase at the moment about being London’s answer to sustainable fashion.
“We really want to bang the drum for sustainability and it’s the volunteers who are the lifeblood of our shops, whether it’s online or in person.
“What I always find amazing about our shop’s volunteers is that it brings together people with such varied interests.
“Veronica will have people who are really passionate about sustainable fashion or who want to develop their skills working in fashion or online retailing, but because we’re a local charity we’ll also have people volunteering in our shops who maybe have had a loved one cared for by the hospice.
“I think it’s hugely beneficial to us that we have such a range of volunteers, who come at it from completely different angles.”
Through their online and physical shops, the hospice resells or recycles approximately half a million items of clothing a year.
A list of Royal Trinity Hospice physical charity shops and online shops can be found here.
Many of the items that are sold on the charity’s Depop page, which currently has over 6500 followers, come from donations.
Balsom said: “It’s quite phenomenal. And so much of it just relies on the local community coming in with their bag of clothing and making their donation to their local shops or arranging for a collection online, etc.”
Members of the public are able to make monetary donations through the hospice’s website.
Individuals may also donate goods in various ways, including having their donations collected from them, as explained on the hospice’s donating goods page on their website.
Royal Trinity Hospice also sells non-fashion items on their Amazon, Ebay and Gumtree pages, with their Amazon being used solely to sell books.
Herranz said: “We only have top end highly collectible antiquarian type of books because we’re so small, we can’t compete with the massive resellers.
“So my strategy was to curate a selection that was highly desirable and aspirational. So beautiful coffee table books, architectural books, very old antique books or something that’s beautiful, rare and gorgeous.”
Donations are vital to the hospice as money raised pays for specialists, nurses, doctors, physiotherapists and carers who travel to people’s homes, care homes and even prisons, and homeless hostels.
Balsom said: “If someone is in need of specialist, palliative care or end of life care, we want to be there to provide it for them for free to the highest standard.
“And it’s only with Veronica and her team of fundraising colleagues, and crucially, people who shop in our shops and who donate or put on events, that means we can do that.”
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Great work to all! Love these shops and the staff are so trendy and helpful – even better knowing exactly where the money goes.