For Charities

Microhive, the act of donating small amounts to charity, is a powerful tool for individuals and businesses to support charities and communities. While the contributions may seem modest on their own, collectively, they make a significant impact. To date Microhive has raised £8m by employers inviting their employees, pensioners, and suppliers to donate small amounts to charity on a regular basis.

We believe in making giving easy for businesses and individuals and want to transform the way people donate to charity. The opportunities to Microhive are endless, Let’s unleash the power of small change giving and empower change one penny at a time.

Employees simply sign up and the pennies are donated to charities directly from pay. If you earn £850.34 then you keep the £850 and donate the 34p to charity. The maximum amount you can give is 99p from every payslip and whilst a small ask of each of us, together we can make a big difference to charity.

We used to call the scheme, Pennies from Heaven, the concept, and operation remain the same, it just has a new name.

The employer nominates the charity that all staff give to. The charity can be any UK registered charity.

Employers can nominate more than one charity in which case the donations are split equally across them.

Yes, please do introduce Microhive as a fundraising tool that employers can adopt to further support your charity. You can download a brochure on our website or email info@microhive.org.uk and we can share collateral.

Yes, but not a lot. Microhive will agree a modest fee for the license to run the scheme to not only cover the costs of the services we provide but also support us to continue our charitable work. As a Social Enterprise, our employers realise the scheme can accomplish more by working together than acting alone. We are on a mission to grow micro-giving across the UK and our fees enable us to do this. Without employers recognising the value we bring to the wider charitable sector Microhive would cease, costing the charity sector ~£700,000 a year of donations. The fee will depend on the level of services provided and the number of employees. Microhive receives no other income and does not charge the charities anything.

There’s never been a more important time to take care of each other and our communities, by leveraging the collective power of many small donations, Microhive cultivates a habit of generosity, empowering individuals, and businesses to become active participants in creating positive change.

• It’s a small ask – most people can afford to join in and be part of the collective impact.
• It’s simple to set up – Microhive administers the scheme and has 25 years’ experience.
• Demonstrates social purpose as part of ESG reporting – show you are acting in a manner benefiting society as a whole.
• Supports a Social Enterprise – Microhive exists to create meaningful change by using business as a force for good in our communities and beyond.

Setting up Microhive is simple, and we are here to guide you. Once we have issued an employer a license to operate the scheme, they would need to:

• Choose their benefiting charity/charities.
• Invite staff to join in – employees can sign up via the Microhive website and comms can be designed by Microhive. Administration is done by Microhive, little impact on payroll and finance teams.
• Pennies are deducted and sent to Microhive for distribution to charity.

We have launched in as little as five days.

Most of our employers run Microhive and Payroll Giving as they represent different types of giving. If an individual want to choose a specific charity and give more, then Payroll Giving is the perfect choice. Most employers want to ensure that all staff can be part of a work based giving scheme and this is what Microhive provides. Microhive allows the majority of employees to support charities as the individual ask is less than £1. Collectively teams can raise thousands of pounds for charity and all be part of the success.

We are a restless fundraising company on a mission to champion the collective power of giving pennies, not pounds. We want to grow micro-giving across the UK and show everyone how easy it is to collectively make a difference. As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation and growth, we’ve decided to rebrand ourselves to better align with our vision and values. We wanted our name to be unique, adaptable, portray a sense of community and momentum and bring in the micro giving element and felt that the name Microhive better reflected this.

Microhive is our new trading name. Pennies from Heaven Fundraising Limited and Pennies from Heaven Distribution Limited remain the company names registered at Companies House.

Microhive is the UK’s largest micro giving scheme for employees and pensioners and to date has raised £8m for over 800 charities. We have around 400 partners including Aldi UK, Barclays, Bank of England, Cap Gemini, HSBC UK, Cadbury Schweppes, Circle Health, East of England Cooperative, EY, ITN, Harrods, LV=, Puregym, Moto, TUI, WHSmith and the largest UK employer the NHS. We are proud to share that NHS employees have donated £1.6m much of which has benefited NHS charities.

Yes, Microhive is a way for a company to show their external stakeholders that their organisation is committed to go above and beyond to support charities and the communities it operates in.

In 2023 we launched the Microhive Pennies from Heaven Quality Mark (formerly known as Pennies from Heaven) and shared it with our winners. This mark demonstrates an organisations dedication to support society and add value to the charities and communities they care about. Working with Microhive also generates a much wider impact than the donations the charities receive. We are a Social Enterprise that wants everyone to be part of micro giving, so as employers join the Microhive family, all working together for the betterment of society, the deeper the social impact we have together. Only our Award winners can use this mark on their websites, ESG reports and other stakeholder communications.

Microhive is here to make the set up and running of the scheme simple working with employers at every stage. Some of the services provided by us include:

• Payroll set up – we help set up the scheme on payroll systems and share best practice from other employers, saving employers time and change costs.
• Set up and administration of scheme – we provide implementation guides, consent form wording, promotional artwork and HMRC gift aid wording (without which staff will have to re-join the scheme if charities change).
• Distribution of donations – Microhive receives and sends the donations to charities and send employers quarterly audit trails confirming this. Microhive is externally audited each year providing employers with assurance of our credible donation processing.
• Online sign up – Staff can join the scheme via the Microhive website.
• License Provision – We provide employers with the Intellectual Property of the scheme and the use of the name and registered trademark.
• Awards Program – Each year we recognise employers who have high levels of participation in the scheme.

Yes, Microhive donations are eligible for Gift Aid. This can be claimed annually or when charities change.