Over the last ten days, bins around Australia have been full to capacity with rubbish, packaging, gift tags and wrapping paper. Sydney Mums, Julie Tylman and Ali Linz, created Group Together to avoid waste from unwanted gifts, packaging and wrapping paper.

 

Julie Tylman, co-founder of GroupTogether, explains: “Ali and I have seven children combined. We met for coffee one day after a weekend of ferrying kids to and from birthday parties. We were exhausted from the driving, parking, buying, wrapping gifts, drop offs and pick-ups involved in attending kid’s parties.  We were also gob-smacked at the amount of money we had spent (7 kids’ x 2 parties’ x $20ish gifts + wrapping & card) only to find out that the birthday kids either already had the gifts, were given multiple copies of the gifts or didn’t love them.” 

 
They created GroupTogether, an easy online tool that makes it easy to pool funds to give one gift that’s really wanted without the waste. Friends can also add a photo and message to the group card. For those who want to “give back”, there’s the option to donate a portion of the gift pool to your favourite charity. 
 
The business has grown and now has over 20,000 users who have organized group gift collections through GroupTogether. One of the most popular types of collections at the end of 2016, was end of year teacher’s gifts.
 

Ali Linz, co-founder GroupTogether, continues: “As well as cutting out the waste, we also felt that there was an opportunity to create a culture of mindful giving. That’s why we made it easy to donate a bit of the group gift to charity so kids can learn the joy of giving back.”

Julie Tylman, co-founder, GroupTogether concludes: “I really feel for the January babies, they struggle. No need to give the sad, re-gifted Chrissie present, instead friends can keep their new year's resolution and stay on budget by pooling their money together and giving one great gift.”