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Charterhouse campaigns against CAF decision to scrap charity vouchers

Fundraising | Niki May Young | 1 Apr 2011

Charterhouse Research has launched a campaign against the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) decision to scrap its charity vouchers service, stating that "thousands of donations" could be lost.

Mervyn Flack, director of Charterhouse Research, which has distributed over £65,000 in charity vouchers over the past few years, said:

"We are shocked and disappointed by the sudden decision to scrap charity vouchers. There appears to be no suitable alternative to these vouchers, which will mean charities will miss out on significant amounts of vital income."

The market research company says that the vouchers, which it provides to interviewees as a thank you, are irreplaceable because they can be handed over at the end of an interview, they allow recipients to give to the charity of their choice, and they can be handed to the recipients' family or friends as a gift to give to their favourite charity.

CAF, however, advises that it only issued 150 orders last year for the vouchers, totalling around £30,000, some of which is not redeemed by charities. "The cost of operating the scheme is disproportionate to the value of funds generated for charities. We are putting our efforts into creating more modern and tax efficient ways of giving," said a spokesperson for the organisation, adding that gift aid can not be claimed on the vouchers.

While Charterhouse has offered to pay a £1 admin fee per voucher, which it said it used to pay before it was scrapped in 2009, the CAF spokesperson said that one organisation paying the admin fee would not solve the problem.

CAF is offering the CAF Company Account service as an alternative. Enabling organisations to send vouchers from their account to the customer "like a cheque", the recipient would still be able to choose which charity the donation goes to and the donation is tax efficient, the spokesperson advised.

Charterhouse, however, believes that this is an unsuitable alternative as cheques drawn on a CAF Company Account have to specify the charity to which the payment will be made.

"We are sorry that Charterhouse are unhappy about us ending the CAF Charity Gift Voucher scheme," said the CAF spokesperson. "There are other organisations who could provide Charterhouse with charity gift vouchers such as charityvouchers.org and Globalgiving.org. Knowing that other organisations provide this service was an important consideration when we decided to end the service."

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Directory: Charities Aid Foundation