Carrot and stick
21 May 2012
Community isn't led by government, so why wait for it to tell you what to do, protests Robert Ashton....
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Where's the gift aid?
I’ve just signed up for membership to a certain London cultural centre because, among other reasons, I’m a bit fancy like that.
As I was clicking through my preferences (‘world music’ yes, ‘family events’ please god, no) I – who spends her working life reading and writing about how charities can make money – skipped blissfully past the ‘gift aid’ tick box. I had to back-track through a number of screens to make my membership donation tax efficient.
If I can miss it what hope is there for the fundraising laity who just think they are signing up for monthly newsletters and access to the members' bar?
And what does the phrase ‘gift aid’ really communicate anyway? At first glance it seems like another ask rather than a painless way to support your organisation more. The block of text after the tick box looks more like a list of terms and conditions which, frankly (and to my frequent detriment) I never read.
Fair enough, charities are stuck with the opt-in system, but there must be something that can be done to make gift aid a more ovbious part of the giving process.
Because, otherwise, we're just all heading straight to the members' bar.
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Celina Ribeiro is the editor of Fundraising magazine and daily contributor to CivilSociety.co.uk.
Follow Celina @Celina_Ribeiro_
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Barry Gower
4 Feb 2009
The Government needs to change the system. It should be automatic. In response to the comment by Benita McMahon, it needs to be remembered that (New) Gift Aid was introduced by Gordon Brown in 2000 as incentive to raise donations from individuals from around 1% of Gross Domestic Earnings around 2% ( as in the USA) as part of his "Get Britain Giving" campaign. Raising money for charities is an effect of Gift Aid not the reason and so charities have to work within the rules.
What is most sad about Gift Aid, is how little of it is collected - less than 30% of donation are estimated as being given using Gift Aid and worse, how much of it goes unclaimed and unprocessed - an estimated £700 million annually. Because this can be back-claimed for 6 years this means that there is around £4 Billion for charity just waiting to be collected. So perhaps there is a something more that charities can do.
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