Charities, like most businesses, were hit hard during the 2020 pandemic and so when an opportunity arose to help make a difference in conjunction with our payment partner Worldline, it was a quick decision for us.

Route out of Homelessness is a charity initiative created by Network Rail to help homeless people across Britain, especially during the winter months when not having a roof over your head can easily prove fatal.

Sadly, the number of people of all ages without a home still stands at an alarming rate and the initiative therefore looks to raise well-needed funds that it distributes across The Big Issue Foundation, Crisis, End Youth Homelessness, Railway Children and Shelter – all of which are working to fight homelessness.

Millions of passengers

Operating across stations the breadth of the UK, Network Rail sees millions of passengers pass through its stations every day. This should present a huge opportunity for charities to raise awareness and funds, but commuters are typically in a hurry and rarely these days have access to loose change in their pockets to throw into donation buckets.

The previous method of deploying staff and volunteers to the stations had been relatively successful, but placed huge demands on the teams and involved them handling large buckets of change every day.

A technical breakthrough

To help create awareness for the charities and provide a quick and easy mechanism to collect donations, Evoke worked closely with Worldline and Network Rail to develop a unique solution that is specifically designed to deal with the fast-paced nature of the railway station.