Jewellery for Charity

If you buy the silver Bulgari ring (pictured below) this Christmas, you will be simultaneously giving and receiving: €60 of the €290 price tag will go straight to Save the Children. This is one of many examples of the burgeoning relationship between jewellery and charity.

Bulgari, whose normal entry-level price for jewellery is around €490, aims to appeal to a wider audience than the one it normally targets with a product such as this. According to Francesco Trapani, its chief executive, “It is a pretty inexpensive piece of jewellery. We don’t normally do silver but we wanted to do something very commercial to raise money.”

The ring will spearhead the Roman jewellery house’s 125th anniversary celebrations when it goes on sale next January in Harrods and at Bulgari stores worldwide the following month. It is hoped that sales of the rings, plus the proceeds from a related auction of high jewellery, will raise €10m for Save the Children.

This effort is just one among many contemporary marriages of precious product and philanthropy, including a bangle from Montblanc, pens and watches from Chopard, and watches from IWC (the International Watch Company).

Perhaps it was the high profile “(RED)” campaign, with its series of products designed specifically to raise money to fight Aids, that brought about this sea change. Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children, says: “businesses and charities are looking for win-win opportunities to collaborate. While a cheque is lovely, a longer standing relationship with buy-in from clients is more valuable for us.”

The charity jewellery phenomenon is not a new one. In Berlin at the start of the 19th century, women gave their gold and diamond jewels to fund the war against Napoleon’s invasion of Prussia. In exchange for their glittering jewels the women received black iron tiaras and necklaces that fast became the only socially acceptable jewels, and, more importantly, the badge of a patriot to be worn pride. Replace “patriot” with “social responsibility” and the formula still works.

“From cans of instant coffee to jewellery, in a recession a charity link is another reason for choosy customers to buy a product,” says Save the Children’s Whitbread. “The feel-good factor is a big plus in tough markets.”

“We would rather do this than put our logo on a Formula 1 driver’s helmet,” says Roland Ott, director of corporate communications at Swiss watch house IWC. Ott reports that watches with a charity link sell better than standard products, though the margin on them is, of course, lower.

Nevertheless, IWC has thus far sold enough products to give almost $2m to charities, including the Fondation Antoine de St Exupéry, the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Cousteau Society.