33%
Of profit, after costs. An even 11% each.
Stamp Social Ltd is a UK company that sells a £3 app, not a charity. It pays its costs and its tax, and then a third of whatever profit is left is donated outright to three UK-registered charities. If there is no profit in a year, there is no donation that year, and no shortfall carries forward into the next one. The amount is worked out from the profit after costs and tax for the financial year, and it is not capped.
Nothing about that arrangement is unusual, and that is the point. It is a Qualifying Charitable Donation under Part 6 of the Corporation Tax Act 2010, and every UK company files annual accounts on a register anyone can read.
The three, and why each one.
| Selected charity | Share | When |
|---|---|---|
| Cancer Research UK Nearly every family has a story about this one. Cancer Research UK funds the scientists, doctors and nurses working on prevention, diagnosis and treatment for more than 200 types of cancer, across institutes and centres around the country. |
11% | Annually, at our financial year-end |
| Surfers Against Sewage You should be able to swim in a British river without checking a map first. Surfers Against Sewage is a grassroots charity that publishes real-time sewage alerts for the coast and rivers, and campaigns to end the discharges and cut the plastic that ends up in the same water. |
11% | Annually, at our financial year-end |
| RSPB Britain has lost a great deal of its birdsong inside one lifetime. The RSPB manages more than 200 nature reserves across the UK, and works to bring back the species that used to be ordinary. |
11% | Annually, at our financial year-end |
| Annual accounts, filed every year at Companies House | 33% | Of profit, after costs |
All three are UK-registered charities, selected by Stamp Social Ltd. They are selected, not partners: they are under no obligation to Stamp, they do not endorse Stamp, and no logo of theirs appears here. A charity cannot enter a partnership with a company that has no filing history behind it, so nothing on this page should be read as one. The selection may change over time, and any change is published here before it takes effect.
Three is a decision, not a round number.
- Each pound goes further
- Splitting the pool three ways instead of ten means each charity receives a materially larger share. At our scale, concentration matters more than breadth.
- Three mirrors the product
- Stamp’s rhythm is one slow, considered post a day. Three slots reads as the same kind of considered balance rather than a long list nobody remembers.
- Three is legible
- With three clear entries, anyone can see exactly where the charity share goes and why each one was chosen. A sprawling list of causes would blur that into nothing.
- UK-registered, permanently
- Even as Stamp opens up beyond the UK, the charity pool stays here. Payments and legal stay in one jurisdiction, and a member abroad still funds causes at home, which concentrates the effect rather than diffusing it.
Once a year, on real profit.
Each of the three receives an equal third of the charity pool, paid once a year after our financial year-end, once the year’s profit is actually known. Paying annually on a real figure, rather than estimating it quarter by quarter, is the only honest way to give a true third of profit.
- Who pays
- Stamp Social Ltd, the company. Not you. Your £3 is a subscription payment for a product, which is why it carries no charitable-giving tax treatment for you.
- What is paid
- An outright unconditional donation to each charity, with nothing asked in return. No naming rights, no campaign, no obligation on them at all.
- When
- Once a year, at our financial year-end, after costs and tax are settled and the profit figure is final.
- Where you check it
- Our annual accounts, filed every year at Companies House. That is where the company’s figures are published, on the same public record every UK company is held to.
We would like each charity to publish a short note on what its share funded, and we expect most will, but no payment is ever gated on a report being filed.
If the three change, you read it here first.
Stamp Social Ltd selects the charities. The selection may change over time, and any change is published on this page, with its reasoning, before it takes effect. Members are customers, not parties to the donations, and cannot direct or enforce them.
Stamp Foundation is a brand operated by Stamp Social Ltd. It is not itself a registered charity or a separate legal entity. Every payment under the charity commitment is made directly from Stamp Social Ltd to a UK-registered charity.
For charity enquiries, write to hello@stamp.foundation.