Charities Aid Foundation is lobbying politicians to adopt measures to make charitable giving easier and more widespread with a campaign which references cheese.

The organisation is using the fact that the average UK household allocates around 0.4 per cent of all their spending on charitable donations – the same amount that they allocate to cheese – to encourage politicians and policymakers to implement changes to boost giving.

Hannah Terrey, head of policy at CAF, said that the “charity or cheese” message is designed to put into perspective and raise awareness of the level of giving in the UK and highlight some of the organisations asks of government.

“The reason we’re using the charity or cheese message is to get people beyond politicians thinking about charitable giving,” she said. Despite the introductions of measures such as gift aid and promotion of payroll giving household spending on giving has not moved beyond the 0.4 per cent level for decades, said Terrey, adding that getting people to think about their wealth, levels of giving (and how much they spend on cheese) could help to move the needle on philanthropy.

Terrey said the charity or cheese message has been “well-received” so far at its first outing at the Liberal Democrat party conference in Birmingham. CAF is using the message to call on government to consider making tax effective giving easier and to promote a culture of giving in the UK. The organisation is also launching a ‘charity question time’ panel debate at each of the autumn party conferences at which questions of giving will be debated by top politicians and charity leaders.

The campaign is backed by eight celebrity chefs, all of whom have donated cheese recipes to the campaign which can be found the CAF website.

For any people at the Liberal Democrat conference this week, civilsociety.co.uk understands that CAF is giving away cheese at its stand.