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Digital Gift Aid
Collecting Gift Aid through DONATE™
Gift Aid is a vital source of revenue for all charities in both its traditional and digital forms. In 2020, 31% of all digital transactions given through DONATE™ attracted Gift Aid generating significant additional income for our charitable partners. However, the rules and processes around Gift Aid can be confusing for both charities and donors. Our digital declarations simplify and improve the process for both parties. Here’s how we do things…..
Collecting Gift Aid
DONATE™ offers your donor the opportunity to apply Gift Aid to their web and text donations. The Gift Aid scheme allows charities to claim an extra 25p from HMRC for every £1 donated by UK taxpayers. Gift Aid can be collected on all eligible donations by National Funding Scheme (the charity that runs DONATE™). We collect, process and then pass across any Gift Aid due to those registered partners with charitable status.
For non-charities with charitable purposes, the Gift Aid portion on any eligible donations is retained by National Funding Scheme and the donation is no longer subject to a transaction fee.
Web Donations
Donors add Gift Aid to their donations during the web donation process. When running auctions, Gift Aid may also be available on winning bids. The DONATE™ team will work with you to maximise the amount of Gift Aid that can be reclaimed.
Text Donations
When making a text donation, the default reply message includes a weblink to allow donors to add Gift Aid to their donation. This can be activated at any point after the donation has been processed. Gift Aid can not be collected on text raffle entries.
Contactless
Gift Aid is not available when making contactless donations as these donations do not collect the donor’s name or income tax declaration.
Maximising Gift Aid
In 2020 DONATE™ saw 61% of all web donations add Gift Aid compared to only 25% of Text donations.
Gift Aid should be part of the planning process of any fundraising campaign. Since Gift Aid is often misunderstood by donors, careful communication about the benefits and rules are required.
DONATE™ always requests an enduring Gift Aid declaration. Ensuring that you make the case for Gift Aid is essential to achieving your campaign goals. Do you plan to increase the number of Gift Aid conversions amongst your current digital supporter base or maybe you are looking to convert existing offline supporters to digital giving?
All web and text donations include automated thank-you messages. For those not adding Gift Aid during the initial donation, DONATE™ sends a Gift Aid reminder within the thank-you email and the text message reply link to add Gift Aid remains active. The donor can complete the declaration at their leisure, reducing friction and increasing their understanding. All thank-you messages can be tailored to maximise Gift Aid conversions.
Gift Aid can be back dated by up to 4 years so it is important to communicate regularly with those donors that have not made a declaration and encourage them to complete the enduring declaration form. Again, we recommend you carefully consider communications whilst explaining how much benefit the extra 25% will achieve.
Thursday 7 October 2021 is Gift Aid Awareness Day. Why not get involved to increase the focus on Gift Aid on any campaigns your charitable organisation might be running during this time? Find out more at https://cfg.org.uk/tickthebox
Read our case study on how Bishopsland and Float Art maximised Gift Aid during their event.
Gift Aid for the future
Gift Aid registration is a one time task and can benefit all of our charitable partners. We currently have tens of thousands of completed digital Gift Aid declarations. Our Gift Aid declaration is always enduring therefore, once an individual is registered Gift Aid will be collected on all eligible future donations to any DONATE™ campaign. Donors can monitor and manage all of their own donations and declarations through the platform. Collecting Gift Aid digitally dramatically lowers the error rates associated with traditional paper forms whilst also reducing administration.
Migrating over to digital Gift Aid declarations might seem complicated for in-person fundraising but for digital collections it could not be easier. Thinking outside of the box and collecting digital Gift Aid declarations could quickly become the norm for your organisation.
For more in depth information about Gift Aid rules please visit.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charities-detailed-guidance-notes/chapter-3-gift-aid
If you would you like to hear more about how DONATE™ handles Gift Aid and how we can help boost your Gift Aid conversions please drop us an email at hello@nationalfundingscheme.org
Have you planned and executed a fundraising campaign that has seen great results on Gift Aid before? Our community of professional fundraisers would love to hear more. Join our free Guild.co for networking and support.
