For over five years, Cherwell Collective, our staff, and our volunteers have been so proud of the impact we have had on communities in Oxfordshire. We have helped create spaces for community members to gather, connect, share resources, and put food surplus and other goods to use. We have also spread awareness about the climate impact of our consumer choices, especially around the foods we buy and the clothing we wear.

You may wonder how you can financially support us in these efforts and further widen our impact. We’ve created three different pathways to donate to Cherwell Collective. These pathways all support our operations and our community financially.

Make a Direct Donation

The easiest way to support the organization is to make a straightforward monetary donation online. We can allocate these funds to whichever of our programmes needs it most at the moment, such as our  WISH programme and Harvest @ Home. For instance, most recently, our fundraising focused on generating the necessary capital to renovate the WISH headquarters building in Kidlington.

Now that the WISH space has reopened with new conveniences and amenities, it can provide us with a permanent home for our weekly Cherwell Larder and Climatarian Kitchen programmes. One immediate benefit is that we will be able to offer Climatarian Café lunch services more frequently.  They will be available Monday through Friday, starting in July 2025, an expansion of the previously maintained Thursday and Friday-only calendar.

Your ongoing support will not only help us pay those renovation bills but also provide workshops, café services, and courses on-site. To donate to Cherwell Collective, visit our dedicated Donation Page and click “Donate Now”.

Share a Smile with Pay It Forward (Pass It On)

Sometimes, members of the community need a little bit of financial support when they visit us at Climatarian Café.  To help maintain our “pay what you can” model, which includes offering free options to those with financial hardships, we have launched the Pay It Forward program (also known as Pass It On) for local community members.

How it works is simple: Local community members can drop into the WISH headquarters at 4 The Parade, Killington, and speak with our staff. You can make a donation in person to provide a snack, drink, or meal to someone and leave them a friendly sticky note with a message of your choice.

Any community member who feels the need can choose a sticky note from the wall and exchange it for the food item you have graciously donated.

Your Online Shopping Can Support Us Through EasyFundraising

You and the online merchants you shop with can team up to donate to Cherwell Collective through EasyFundraiser.  Here’s how it works:

A variety of UK retailers and online merchants have already partnered with EasyFundraising.  These include online portals, grocers, and hospitality groups, including Amazon UK, eBay, Tesco, ASDA, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis, Apple, Expedia, Hotels.com, Booking.com, and Vrbo. You can join EasyFundraising so that when you shop online with these — and 8,000 other vendors — a portion of your spending will be donated to an organization of your choice, at no added cost to you.

It takes roughly 3 minutes to sign up and choose Cherwell Collective as the organization you want to support. Just visit our page on the EasyFundraising website to sign up. You’ll be able to download a web browser extension that records when you shop online from partner vendors, and EasyFundraising will collect donations from the merchant to support us. Many merchants will donate up to 4% of the value of your purchase toward the organizations you partner with. All of this takes place at no additional cost to you.

Other Means of Supporting Our Efforts

We know that making a financial contribution is not always in the cards, but there are plenty of ways to lend a helping hand. We actively encourage local community members to check our Volunteer Page for ongoing opportunities to support us in person with your time.

Meanwhile if you are part of a larger community organization or company looking to support an organization like us, we are always looking for community and corporate partners.