The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) has created a donation widget for users of its fundraising support service.

It is fully customisable so charities can include their own branding and messages. Once created charities and supporters will be able to embed the code into their own websites or Facebook pages to encourage donations.

Chris Allwood, innovation and delivery manager at CAF, said: “Rather than expecting donors to come to a charity’s website, the widget is a way for charities to go where their potential donors are.”

One of the four charities to trial the service was the DEC and donations manager Polly Gilchrist said: “The CAF widget has the potential to create a self-reinforcing virtuous circle with those providing space and their communities getting instant recognition of their support for the DEC.”

The other organisations already using the widget are Beating Bowel Cancer, Aston University and Porchlight.

A widget is piece of code which can be embedded into websites and social networking pages by copying and pasting and the giving widget is available through CAF’s fundraising support service at no additional cost.