Typhoon Haiyan Appeal T-shirt - How much goes to the relief fund?

'Stronger & Bravier' the Typhoon Haiyan Benefit T-shirt is available here on pre-order until midnight Monday 18th November - http://store.gawakotoclothing.co.uk/Pre-Order-Fundraising-Shirt-Stronger-Braver_p_45.html

We received a bunch of emails and comments asking how much of the t-shirt money will be donated to the emergency relief fund. I wrote the passage below to explain how much we expect to raise and how the sums are split:

Thanks for your email enquiring about the breakdown.

The t-shirt on the Gawakoto site is offered at £15 plus shipping. We promised to donate 100% profits to relief organisation Disaster Emergency Committee (the UK government will match donations up to £5million too). The DEC website outlines the proportion of donations that go directly to people in the crisis hit region. My understanding is that all major charity organisations work similarly (in terms of how donations are spent).

A portion of that has to pay for the tee and the printing itself. Our screen printers give us a price break on volume orders so we’re hopeful we can get lots of pre-orders to bring down the unit cost further. This leaves more for the actual donation part. But given sales so far and our projections over the pre-order period, it’ll be around £5 per tee. 

There is also VAT to consider. VAT is deducted from all UK and EU sales but not from sales outside of this region. Since we’re not a registered charity we can’t claim back that VAT. 

Finally there is a small commission that Paypal take – roughly 3.4%.
All other costs – the running of the webstore fees, staff, warehouse rent etc etc is all covered by the Gawakoto Clothing management team.

Here is a rough profit guide that we expect to accrue with tee sales:
For UK/EU sales approx £7.50 per tee sold
For ROW sales approx £10 per tee sold.

There is also a one day sale being organised by BJJHQ. I don’t have figures for their operation but again, they have promised 100% profits to aid relief organisations. Based on my experience with the fundraising Heavenly Footlock t-shirt (where all profits raised were donated to Rape Crisis and RAINN), the BJJHQ volume of sales could be very significant.

In total, over the fundraising period, we hope to raise a lot of money which will be donated to aid relief organisations. I will detail everything in my blog (www.meerkatsu.com) once we have all the figures.

For those who prefer that their donation is used purely for the aid relief then there is a list of organisations who will accept donations - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/10/help-typhoon-haiyan-relief-effort
The UN and Red Cross are particularly heavily involved.

I hope for now this is enough information for you. Any questions please feel free to respond. The t-shirt is more than a donation device, it is our way, as a community, to show support for our Filipino brothers and sisters.

Thanks,

Seymour Yang