Young entrepreneur establishes revolutionary online present service

A young entrepreneur from Cardiff has established a revolutionary online children's birthday present service with a charitable twist.

The first of its kind in the world, timto – ‘there is more to birthdays’ – is a website that allows children to create a gift list for their ideal presents, while simultaneously raising money for a chosen good cause or charitable organisation.

The idea came to the 28-year-old Luke Cornish at a family birthday party in 2008 after his niece received an overwhelming number of presents from friends and family, some of which were duplicates.

After researching the children’s birthday market and finding that an estimated 6.5million parties in the UK are held each year equating to an expenditure of over £800million on presents, the concept for timto started to take shape.

A masters graduate with a previous career in engineering , Luke challenged himself to develop a concept to offer an alternative, where some of the money that would have been spent on wrapping paper and presents that were either duplicated,  unloved or unused, could be converted into something more positive like a charitable donation. 

The online service timto.co.uk, which is a member of both the Fundraising Standards Board and the Good Fundraising Code, has been established to offer a service to birthday families and guests  as an alternative to the current potentially wasteful and environmentally unfriendly practice.  Friends and family are invited to make a contribution to the child’s very own online birthday fund , allowing the birthday child to choose their ideal  presents  and use the online funds for both the purchase and the equally important donation to a charity they are encouraged to think about and choose.

Luke is working in association with household names such as Amazon.co.uk, The Entertainer, Early Learning Centre and Mothercare, to provide products for the online timto shop, which also provides kids and adult experience days via Red Letter Days.  National and regional charities, including Help for Heroes, NSPCC, WWF, Tenovus, Well Child, Royal Marsden Children’s Hospital to name just a few, are already linked into the timto service. The birthday family can choose from the list of charities or nominate their preferred alternative, which can include their own school PTA.
Says Luke: “There are children’s parties happening week in week out across the UK, and generous friends and families are spending between £5 and £10 on gifts that are sometimes never even played with. The timto concept means that children receive the big ticket items that they have always wanted, there’s less packaging and wrapping-paper waste, no last minute dash to the shops for busy mums and dads, and worthwhile causes and charities across the UK will benefit from every penny of the amount donated. It also gives each child the ability to make a meaningful donation to people less fortunate than themselves, and the experience of choosing which charity they wish to support.”
Operating out of the Valleys Innovation Centre in Abercynon, the company aims to raise £4million for charities across the UK in the next three years, with the long term objective of being identified as a major fundraising website. Starting with the children’s party market, there are plans to also branch out internationally as well as servicing different markets, including adult celebrations such as anniversaries, birthdays and retirements.

Continues Luke: “Our aim is to help charities and good causes, through or unique service, to increase their income significantly at a time when the demand on their services is growing and donations are squeezed in the credit crunch.  Feedback from the charities we are working with has been extremely positive, highlighting two clear benefits. Firstly, it provides an entirely new stream of revenue , and secondly, it educates a new generation of young people to care for others and act as a global citizen.”

To help set up the business, timto has received support from Venture Wales (funded by the Welsh Assembly Government), Flexible Support for Business, Design Wales and the University of Glamorgan’s GTi Business Network.
 

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