Donating
What is it?
Without the generosity of the millions of people who donate money to causes they care about, our charities could not continue doing their great work. There are many different ways to give money, from cash or cheque book donations, to direct debits or attending events, buying raffle tickets or leaving a legacy.
How can I get involved?
There are many opportunities to give to charity, and there are a whole range of initiatives and online platforms aimed at making donating easier and more convenient.
For example, the Gift Aid scheme increases the value of donation to charities by allowing them to reclaim the tax on your gift. The charity will normally ask you to fill in a simple form when you make a donation, to make sure they can benefit from Gift Aid.
If your employer offers a Payroll Giving scheme you will be able to donate regularly to a charity of your choice direct from your salary. This is easy to do and Payroll Giving donations are deducted before tax so each £1 you give you only cost you 80p, or 60p if you are a higher rate tax payer.
Text donations are a new method of giving that is simple, speedy and spontaneous. Vodafone UK and JustGiving have joined forces to launch ‘JustTextGiving by Vodafone’. This allows charities and individuals to raise money using text messages with all funds raised going to charity.
There are many different online donation platforms which allow you to search for different causes or charities depending on the issues you care most about. Some offer the opportunity for your donation to be ‘matched’ by corporate sponsors, such as TheBigGive, while others enable you to sponsor friends’ fundraising activities, like JustGiving, VirginMoneyGiving or BT’s MyDonate. Some sites such as Localgiving.com, and globalgiving aim to highlight the work of small local groups.
There are also applications that allow users to donate money to charity at no cost – simply by searching the internet. These cost-free giving sites, such as Everyclick collect the fees online retailers pay for referrals to their websites and then donate these fees to a charity chosen by the user.
‘Ratings’ and comparison websites for charities, such as aliveandgiving.com, can help you decide where you feel your money will be best spent.
Where can I find out more?
- Gift Aid
- Payroll Giving
- The Giving Green Paper and White Paper have more information about new opportunities to give money: