No cards, thanks; we’re trying to save landfill waste!
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Louise from No Cards Thanks
My guest post this week is from Louise who runs No Cards Thanks in her spare time.
Louise was born and raised in Cardiff where she is now bringing up her own little family with her husband Marc. Following her degree and PhD in Biomedical Science she decided she would be better at helping other academics do research rather than doing it herself. To this end she is now the Head of the Research Office for the University of Glamorgan who helped her gain funding to support her venture.
Louise shares her story about why she set up her business and asks that you help her spread the message!
When our little girl Martha was born we received the usual flurry of pink congratulations cards from friends and relatives. During one of those long, long sleepless nights when I had seen all the re-runs on TV a million times already, I counted all our cards to pass the time. I was amazed that we had over 60! It struck me that although I appreciated everyone’s good wishes, ultimately the cards would just be recycled.
I carried on pondering and I worked out that assuming that an average card costs about £3, people had spent over £150 on wishing us well! I thought about what I could do with the money. Martha is our second child so we had all the baby stuff we could possibly need. Then I thought about what the special care baby unit where Martha was born could have done with it. And so the idea of No cards thanks was born.
That was back in 2006. I had the idea and the strong feeling that I should do something with it – I had no idea where to start. Luckily I work for the University of Glamorgan in Wales. I was able to get support for my idea from the University and financial support from Spinout Wales to turn my idea into reality.
No cards thanks lets users tell friends and family that they would rather not have a traditional greetings card for occasions such as birthdays and Christmas but that instead they would prefer an e card with a donation to the charity of their choice. This is much better for the environment than purchasing traditional greetings cards made from trees. A single e card is £2.99 with £2 going straight to the customers chosen charity. The 99p goes towards paying for the administration fees involved with keeping the website going. The website is growing – we now do corporate e cards, which was not in my original plan but it fills a gap in the market.
Running the website business is hard work but I really think it is worthwhile and I have learnt loads in setting up and running the business, (often the hard way). Martha is now 3 years old and she loves helping to send e cards and both my children love receiving them!
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What a lovely idea!
Brilliant!
What a great idea Louise! And a big hello to Wales and the valleys from Suffolk (I’ve still a valleys girl at heart). One of the best things about the Internet is the ability to cut down needless waste like this. Well Done. 😀
I love this idea!