CAF bows out of text donation

13 Sep 2012 News

The Charities Aid Foundation has decided to drop its text giving service because the technology has moved on with new providers entering the market and it does not want to “duplicate the work of those organisations”.

The Charities Aid Foundation has decided to drop its text giving service because the technology has moved on with new providers entering the market and it does not want to “duplicate the work of those organisations”.

It will be phased out by the end of the year enabling users to complete any campaigns. Beyond that CAF has selected fundraising company Vir2 as a partner which it has offered to transfer clients to.

A spokesman told civilsociety.co.uk that the number of charities using its text donation service was “relatively small”.

Paul Rees, executive director at CAF said: “We are proud to have worked to promote the growth of text giving and wanted to encourage the development of this exciting way of giving by offering charities a way of receiving donations by text.

“We have campaigned successfully to ensure text giving is free of tax and all networks pay the full donation direct to charity.”

He added that: “As a charity devoted to encouraging giving in all its forms, we want to develop a culture of giving whether through CAF or through other organisations. It is not our role to duplicate the work of those organisations which are well placed to encourage this form of giving.”

CAF launched its text donation service in November 2010 in association with Vir2 and charged charities £20 per month per key word and 2.5 per cent charge on the value of each donation. At the time it was the only service that offered a fully integrated gift aid service. 

Vodafone and JustGiving’s JustTextGiving service launched in May 2011 - it was the first to launch with no set-up or recurring fees, and without charging donors. More than 9,000 organisations signed up to the service in the first two months.