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The idea for the limited edition Cecil the Lion HTC M9 was a spontaneous reaction to the sickening killing of the endangered beautiful creature in Zimbabwe last month. We wanted to do something to help those working towards wildlife conservation where Cecil lived.
Our 24k Gold HTC M9 is our latest luxury customised smartphone release and we saw it as our most effective vehicle to bring attention to the cause whilst potentially raising funds for Friends of Hwange, a very worthy Trust directly supporting the maintenance and development of Hwange National Park, where Cecil lived. Our founder Laban Roomes was personally and particularly moved by this story and like many others in the UK and globally found the actions of the perpetrator both abominable and abhorrent and was keen to try and draw attention to not only the plight of Cecil but also all other animals that are in danger of such mindless slaughter and we believe we have achieved this. We have been promoting a link to make direct donations to this charity alongside the fundraising capacity of the phone.
Our intentions were and are honourable and we simply applied a charitable initiative to what we do, which is Gold embellishing phones and lifestyle accessories. Our ultimate hope is that our campaign has raised awareness of Friends of Hwange and that the charity benefits from sales of the phone and direct donations as a result.
This is not the first time we have sold a luxury customised item with the intention of donating a percentage of sales to charity. We have run similar campaigns to raise funds for The Elton John Aids Foundation with the Starburst iPod Nano Collection and The Teenage Cancer Trust with a Frank Lampard signed Gold iPod range.
To name just a few, other charities we have helped with product donations towards their own fundraising campaigns are The British Heart Foundation, MacMillan Cancer Support, The Kiyan Prince Foundation and SOS Children’s Vilages.
It is not uncommon for companies to launch products with a portion of sales proceeds being donated to a nominated charity. We have found donating a percentage of proceeds from the sales of our luxury customised items to be an effective way of fundraising for charities in the past and hope to continue to fundraise in this way long into the future.
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