Do you ever wonder how big companies donate money, or how so-called charity programmes distribute their money, and whether beneficiaries even get any proceeds?

Well, here’s a good story: Woolworths’ MySchool (SA’s largest fund raising programme) partnered with Biblionef (a non-profit book donation agency) and gave R70 000 to five rural schools in KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State for new storybooks in English, Zulu, Sesotho and Xitsonga.

This handover came a week before MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet won the ‘Best Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative Linked to Loyalty’ award for their ‘Doing Good Is Good Business’ campaign. This is quite a mouthful, but basically this initiative, SA’s largest fundraising programme, was named the best in the world in its category.

If you haven’t yet signed up to MySchoolMyVillageMyPlanet, then do so – you’re literally giving without actually giving. Every time you use your supporter MySchool card (it isn’t a debit or credit card), a small percentage of your purchase is allocated to your chosen charity or beneficiary (your local school might be a beneficiary too). You don’t pay anything when you join or use your MySchoolMyVillageMyPlanet card.

You can apply for a card instore, or online. What’s more, you can link your existing Woolworths card to MySchool, and swipe it at selected stores (such as Toys R Us, Reggies and Engen) to further contribute (without doing much, other than whipping the card out your purse).

For more information, go to the MySchool website here.