By Richard Dyson
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The ‘giving summit’ in London last week at which Government Ministers met charity leaders was overshadowed by the controversy over George Osborne’s proposal to cap tax relief on donations at £50,000 a year.
Charities say it will rob them of hundreds of millions of pounds of income, leading to drastic cuts in jobs and what they can do.
But away from the rows, thousands of ordinary people are working harder than ever for causes that range from the local to multinational organisations. According to the World Giving Index compiled by the Charities Aid Foundation, despite the recession the British have become more generous in recent years.
Wizard idea: Runners in last month's London Marathon
As individual givers, we are among the world’s five most generous nations - and rising up the ranks. One explanation could be that financial constraint is forcing supporters to make a priority of their giving.
Angharad McKenzie of WaterAid, which aims to give developing world communities access to clean water, says: ‘Of course, people are experiencing the impact of the recession, but in some cases this seems to be focusing supporters’ minds on what is important to them.Â
‘Life is difficult here, but elsewhere in the world 4,000 children still die every day because of dirty water. Perhaps our supporters are asking themselves whether they could really make better use of £2 a month.’
Charities with overseas projects such as WaterAid face particular problems, such as currency fluctuations. Domestic charities have other difficulties, many of which are directly linked to the recession.
At national housing charity Shelter, director of fund-raising Tracy Griffin says: ‘More people are in need of organisations like Shelter, but cuts to statutory funding and pressure on people’s incomes mean there is less money around. This combination is creating significant challenges.’
Many charities have responded with imaginative campaigns to persuade supporters to recruit new backers.
Since 2009, Martin House, a hospice that helps seriously ill children and their families, has run Centre Stage, an annual competition for young bands. The prize is a performance slot at both the Reading and Leeds music festivals.
Bands need to raise £1,000 to enter and this has generated £70,000 for Martin House so far. But crucially, it has also forged important relationships between the charity, based in Boston Spa, Lincolnshire, and local youngsters.
This year’s heats were held last month at Leeds Festival and on July 17 the 13 finalists will battle it out at the O2 Academy in the city.
Last year’s winner was Mexanine, an indie-style band comprising James Brander, Elliott Roper and Rory Senior, all 20 and from Leeds.
‘Entering Centre Stage and playing at Leeds Festival was brilliant,’ says Elliott, who is in his first year at Bradford Art College where he is studying graphic design.
‘It opened so many doors. Martin House is a fantastic cause â€" we want everyone to support it and enter.’
However, supporting charities does not necessarily mean writing hit songs, climbing mountains or running marathons. Even small sums can go far if donors follow a few, financial guidelines.
GIFT AID
It almost always pays to Gift Aid donations by simply declaring, in writing or verbally, that you are a taxpayer. This enables the charity to treat your gift as if it was paid before tax and claim back the difference.
For instance, a £10 donation would be treated as if 20 per cent tax had already been paid, making the original, untaxed gift £12.50. With your Gift Aid declaration, the charity can collect £2.50 from the taxman.
Non-taxpayers are the only donors who cannot boost donations by Gift Aid.
But it works only for basic-rate tax rebates, so higher-rate taxpayers need to declare donations to the taxman themselves direct as well as to Gift Aid.
This way the additional rebates â€" the difference between the basic rate and the higher rate of tax they pay â€" will be refunded or reflected in their tax code.
PAYROLL GIVING
This is more effective than Gift Aid, especially for employees paying higher rates of tax. Employers set up a scheme whereby their workers can nominate charities to which they donate a regular monthly sum. The money is given before any tax is deducted, doing away with the need for tedious reclaiming.
Just under 10,000 businesses participate and the number of donors runs into hundreds of thousands. The schemes are usually administered by third-party companies that take a small fee.
If your employer does not yet offer the service, direct it to the information on the Revenue’s website at hmrc.gov.uk/businesses/giving.
‘CHUGGING'
So-called ‘chugging’, where shoppers are ‘mugged’ on pavements by charity workers wanting to sign up regular donors, is controversial.
Consumers say they hate being bothered by cheerful chuggers, and some local authorities are clamping down.
Chuggers are paid and the cost of recruiting a new donor this way has been put at more than £100, meaning someone committing a monthly £5 might have to wait 20 months before any of their cash reaches the cause. But many prominent charities maintain chugging is a useful means of raising long-term, sustainable income.
CHARITY ACCOUNT
More than 80,000 donors use a Charity Account, overseen by lobby group CAF (Charities Aid Foundation). Users say the accounts help to plan giving and allocate donations across favoured causes.
Money put into your CAF account attracts a basic-rate tax rebate, which CAF collects on your behalf. Once money is in the account, it can be paid only to charitable causes.
Account holders receive a chequebook and card with which to make payments and a password.
Employees can ask for their company to pay a chunk of pre-tax wages into the account, which is helpful for higher-rate taxpayers, but the company will need to be registered with the Revenue to be able to do this.
CASHPOINT GIVING
The Government has said that in a few months 10,000 more cashpoints, including those operated by Royal Bank of Scotland, will have the facility to allow users to make donations. ‘Donate to charity’ will pop up as a new choice on the transaction menu and customers will then be able to select from a list of causes.
HSBC’s cashpoints have offered the facility for six years and the bank says that it is widely used.
HSBC’s system does allow for charities to reclaim basic-rate tax, although it is not clear whether this will still be the case with more cashpoints.
Anxious time: Ian Kennedy watches over his seriously ill daughter
Dad’s fight to secure a future for baby daughter Scarlett
One of the most popular ways to raise money for charity is on a website. You can set up your own fundraising page, personalise it, include pictures and explain why you want to raise money for your chosen charity.
Online fund-raising sites still account for only seven per cent of all charitable donations, but are increasingly popular, especially among younger people.
The most popular site is JustGiving. Over the past ten years, £1billion has been raised through the site as a result of fundraisers doing extraordinary things â€" everything from swimming the English Channel (1,603 times) through to running marathons (75,933 times).
About 21 million people have used the online donation service since 2002 and more than 13,500 charities have benefited. Other online giving providers include virginmoneygiving, BT My Donate and Bmycharity.
Those who are doing their bit for charity can ensure every donor gets a ‘thank you’ email while the site will automatically add Gift Aid on top if a donor is a taxpayer.
Ian Kennedy's daughter, Scarlett, today
Ian Kennedy, 39, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, finished the London Marathon last month in a respectable time of four hours and 55 minutes, raising £2,853.50 for the British Heart Foundation. When topped up with Gift Aid, the sum raised was £3,415.63. All but £40 was raised via Virgin Money Giving. Ian, a director of an infrastructure consultancy firm, was running to raise funds for research into a medical condition that his baby daughter, Scarlett, nearly died from when she was born 14 months ago. Ian and his wife Holly, 37, a midwife, also have a son, Hamish, aged three.
Scarlett contracted viral meningitis three days after she was born. The virus attacked her heart â€" myocarditis â€" and she spent her first three months desperately ill in a specialist hospital.
She survived, but the long-term prognosis is uncertain. Ian says: ‘The British Heart Foundation is doing some wonderful work looking at the inability of the heart to regenerate once it is damaged. I want to ensure Scarlett and other children like her have a chance of a more normal life.’
On a £10 donation, Virgin would give the BHF £12.15. This includes Gift Aid of £2.50 and takes into account a donation charge of two per cent and a card charge of 15p. An equivalent £10 donation made via JustGiving, BT My Donate and Bmycharity would result in the charity receiving £11.74, £12.35 and £12.34 respectively.
JustGiving has received criticism for charging a donation fee of five per cent, but it insists it is necessary to improve its site and add new tools and services for fundraisers and charities.
- To donate to Ian’s page, go to virginmoneygiving.com/iankennedybhf.
We’ve raised £100,000 for WaterAid
Challenge: Fundraiser Anne Lawson
Not everyone is a born public speaker, party planner or marketeer, but retired businesswoman Anne Lawson and her fellow fundraisers have combined these skills to raise a staggering £100,000 in six years.
Anne, 64, from Lyddington, Rutland, joined with five friends in 2005 to launch a series of fundraising events for WaterAid.
‘It is a simple cause that does as its name says â€" it puts clean water into communities,’ says Anne.
The committee built a list of friends and family and invited them to a range of events from garden parties to quizzes, cooking demos, antiques shows and Christmas tree festivals.
Guests are asked to pay for a ticket, often costing as little as £10.
‘Finding the right price is something we argue about, but we have all learnt,’ she says. ‘We do not want to exhaust local people’s generosity. We want people to participate, and they do.
‘When I’m walking down the street, people stop me and say, ‘‘Anne, how’s WaterAid? Am I on your mailing list?’’
‘What could be better than that?’
The group reached their £100,000 milestone earlier this year. Anne has travelled to Mali in western Africa to see WaterAid’s work in action, and found the experience sobering.
‘I’d never been anywhere without the provision of clean water,’ she says. ‘And you can see how it changes lives and communities.
‘WaterAid gives communities sustainable water supplies which local people have helped install and can maintain on their own.
‘It’s incredibly transformational and amazing to see.’
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