👫🏼 About us
Hey! We’re Christian and Shannen. We are a couple based in London who volunteered with the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic. We started this not-for-profit micro-business during that time to create awareness for vaccination safety and raise some funds for NHS Charities Together at the same time.
Since the pandemic, we’ve expanded to raise money for other relevant and worthy charities.
Why pins? We’re not the type of people who run marathons - we’re more likely found at the pub! 🍻 and it also allows us to experience selling physical goods online.
💰 Financials
We make no profit from selling the pin badges - any surplus is either given to charity or reinvested into the next project. We’re both in full-time employment - this is a hobby for us.
Since we’re a micro-business, we aren’t currently registered for UK’s Value Added Tax (VAT) and donate personally from our names so that the charities are always eligible for GiftAid in addition to your donation.
🌱 Environmental impact
As far as we know, all enamel pin badges are made in China, there’s currently no way around that. A lot of companies will claim to be local, but are simply intermediaries. Luckily, enamel pin badges are light and easy to transport.
Hard enamel badges are made from metal (normally copper) and coloured glass powder. There are ecologically friendly pin badges made from ‘eco-metal’ that are available locally that we might consider for future projects if they can convey the same level of quality.
There’s no plastic in the badges. We often use a very thin cellophane packaging on each badge - which was a decision taken early to keep the badge presentable when it arrives (facing the correct way, no dust, more glossy), however, we’ll likely stop that practice when we run out of cellophane sleeves. We do use padded envelopes made from paper and plastic that admittedly do require a little bit of effort from the receiver to recycle - once more eco-friendly biodegradable padded envelopes are economically viable, we’ll switch.
Overall, hard enamel pin badges have a very low footprint, and if taken care of, can last a lifetime.
✉️ Contact us
If you’re looking for help with your order, please contact us through the website from which you purchased the product (Etsy or eBay). This will allow us to look up your order and keep any communication together.
Are you interested in having us design an enamel pin badge for your charity? Get in touch via Etsy or eBay!