Jon Webb-Peploe Tells Us About His Exciting New Venture Designed to Bless The Saver and Their Charity Of Choice!
Bath University School of Management Graduate Jon Webb-Peploe and his partner, Roy Clarke seem to have come up with the answer to a great question.... Just how do you financially bless another person, or organisation - whilst selling for yourself?... Their business, Charitable Choice is seeking to work with churches, organisations, charities and individuals to help bolster their coffers, whilst also financially blessing others. Find out about this inspiring business in Jon's 'Q & A' session with Editor, Emma.
(PICTURES: JON WEBB-PEPLOE, CHARITABLE CHOICE LOGO, ST SAVIOUR'S CHURCH IN LARKHALL, ISA LOGO, JON AND ROY, AND FOCUS LOGO'S, PIGGY BANK )
Tell us about yourself and Charitable Choice..
It is a new website that helps people in the UK choose the right financial solutions for themselves at great rates and at the same time 
generate a meaningful and sustainable income for their chosen charity or church.
It was developed and launched by Clear Choice Partnership, a private limited company co-founded earlier this year by me and Roy Clarke.
I am a University of Bath School of Management MBA graduate and I've worked for start-ups and multi-national businesses in a number of industries and countries over the past 16 years.
I live and work in Bath. Roy is a Chartered Insurance Practitioner who has been providing authorized and regulated financial advice in the UK for over 30 years, and lives in Wiltshire.
What inspired you to set up Charitable Choice?
The concept of buying financial services and giving to charity was Roy's idea. It first came to him 10 years ago and he shared it with me over a cup of coffee last December. I felt I should take the concept seriously. I ran some market research and the findings were positive. So we set up the company, built an eco-system of partners, developed the Charitable Choice proposition over the summer and launched at the end of August.
What are the aims of Charitable Choice?
The aim is to help people do good things with their money, for themselves and for others too. We want to affect a change in mindset about money, that has a positive effect on people's lives and in their communities. After all we reap what we sow.
The vision is therefore of people giving to others when they are buying and saving for themselves. It is also about companies giving to others when they are selling for themselves. Charitable Choice is a vehicle to make this not just possible but also 
easy to do.
Achieving this will help to create sustainable income streams for charities and churches beyond more traditional fundraising, which many charities are struggling with growing during recent economic uncertainty, and will enable more of them to deliver more of the services needed in our communities.
Sustainability is key so that the benefits delivered today are built on tomorrow and create a legacy that we can all be proud of.
Who and what organisations are you aiming to working with?
Charities and churches: to help them raise the funds to sustain and then grow the services that they are delivering in communities across the country and overseas, like-minded companies and entrepreneurs: to help them grow their businesses while giving something back to their communities, and to give people more choice of what they can buy through us whilst receiving attractive discounts and rebates to share with their chosen charity or church. 
How does Charitable Choice work with people/organisations in terms of a process?
To an individual, Charitable Choice is a website that offers a range of quality financial services at great rates, and makes it easy for the individual to buy the products and share the discounts and rebates with a charity or church of their choice. Once they complete a transaction with us online, they arrive at the Giving page which gives them the opportunity to choose how much of their saving to share and which charity to share it with. They are then taken to a JustGiving page that enables them to make and gift aid the donation. If they receive a donation voucher then they simply have to choose who to give it to.
We work with charities and churches through an Affiliate Programme. When a church or charity supporter first arrives on the website they will see a message welcoming them as a supporter of the church or charity. When the supporter completes a transaction and they arrive on the Giving page, he or she will see their church or charity highlighted on the page and find it easiest to give to them. We
also help a charity or church develop, test and launch their marketing strategy for Charitable Choice, to ensure it is communicated effectively to their supporters alongside other fundraising initiatives and also protects their reputation and independence. We do not charge for these marketing services, nor do we take a percentage of donations. Our income comes from introducing new customers to our financial services broker partners, which we then give half or more of back to the customers in the form of a discount or rebate.
Leading on from this last point, we work as an introducer for a company that makes its products and services available through us. The type of companies that we are looking to work with in the financial services sector are reputable brokers that are product independent and offer the whole or most of a market, to give customers a large choice. This also means that we, our broker partners and our charity and church partners, are not endorsing any particular product. We work with these companies to develop a business model that is win-win for all and therefore sustainable. We refine and agree the marketing messaging for their propositions on the Charitable Choice website and we manage all necessary IT integration to minimise any requirements on their part to change existing business processes. In short we make it very easy for them to add Charitable Choice as another channel to market for their products and services.
Why did you set up Charitable Choice?
It is an opportunity to make a positive difference. To do something for others as well as for myself and my family. I really believe it can work. The concept of buying and giving may not resonate with everybody, but I believe it will resonate with enough, likely for different reasons.
And then perhaps buying and giving can catch on elsewhere and reach further than we could ever imagine. Our business model is what is typically called a 'volume model'. What this means is a lot of people need to buy a lot of products on offer for Clear Choice Partnership to make any money. This makes it harder for us but it is the right model. There are a number of fundraising initiatives operating today that appear to make more money for the organisation operating them than for charity. Charitable Choice is not set up to be one of these. Charities and churches will benefit before we do. And so they should.
Do you have experience in working with charities?
Yes. I am very pleased to provide strategy, operations and financial management advice to two charitable organisations in Bath, Focus Counselling and World Sport Ministries. This I have done for the past 4 years.
What are your hopes for Charitable Choice?
The short term goal is to bring a number of charities and churches on board as Affiliates and exceed their expectations with the amount of money that we can raise to support them. We are adding new financial services to the Charitable Choice website. We currently offer a great choice of ISAs, Investment Funds and Retirement Income products including a broad range of annuities. I hope to shortly announce several other mainstream financial services solutions to add to these. In time we may offer products and services beyond financial services.