Our story so far

The idea was simple: businesses are generating too much waste, while many charities are in need of more resources. What if we could connect the two?

That’s why we created A Good Thing.

It’s not unheard of for businesses to donate items to charity. And when it does happen, it can work brilliantly.

We saw this ourselves: Cathy was a trustee for Home-Start Slough, where staff were desperately in need of upgrading their outdated computers. SquaredUp, a technology business run by Richard, was in the habit of refreshing its staff laptops every few years – and had ended up with something of a stockpile. SquaredUp donated the laptops it no longer needed to Home-Start Slough, and the charity’s staff were suddenly spending less time battling with IT issues and more time supporting vulnerable families. The money saved was able to go directly towards the charity’s valuable projects.

This particular success story was only able to happen due to the personal connection between the business and the charity. A Good Thing aims to now make this sort of connection a reality for all businesses and charities – no matter how large or small.

*Richard collecting the Digital Leaders Impact Award in the Circular Economy category, March 2024*

Cathy saw that Home-Start Slough was fortunate enough to receive all sorts of brilliant donations from generous local companies over the years: Easter eggs, advent calendars, toys for disadvantaged children at Christmas, toiletries for mums, books and DVDs for struggling families… As a trustee, Cathy saw what a long way these sorts of donations can go - and how many people can benefit from them. We are so excited to be making these sorts of links between charities and businesses easier with A Good Thing.

A Good Thing was born in 2020, in the depths of the first lockdown, and we then launched our pilot in 2021 in the Thames Valley area. We had some fantastic results, and have been growing fast right across the UK ever since.

In 2023 A Good Thing partnered with the British Promotional Merchandise Association (BPMA), resulting in dozens of merchandise businesses from right across the UK signing up to the platform and using it to donate things to their local communities.

2024 was a big year for A Good Thing, and recognition of what we were doing really began to grow: in March 2024 we won a Digital Leaders Impact Award in the Circular Economy category, and a few months later, in July 2024, Cathy was included on the Digital Leaders Net Zero 50 List. We’re delighted to be continuing to scale our idea to charities and businesses of all sizes and types across the country.

In 2025 A Good Thing celebrated its fifth birthday! We hit 3,000 charity signups and 1,000 registered businesses. We also launched our ‘charity needs’ feature, which allows charities that are signed up with us to let nearby businesses know which donated items they’re actually looking for.

We’re looking forward to more really big developments and some very exciting growth. We have run several pilots outside the UK already – it seems this is a pretty universal idea! – and are looking forward to continuing to extend our reach and impact.

Thank you for reading, and we hope that you will want to help us make A Good Thing happen.

Richard and Cathy

[email protected]

Meet the team

Want to help? We’re growing the team!

If you’d like to get involved in A Good Thing – in any capacity – then we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line at [email protected].

Hear the full story

We partnered with CSR-A to deliver a webinar introducing A Good Thing. Hear from co-founder Richard Benwell and guest speakers from both the business and charity sides who have used and benefited from the platform.