The government is to invest £30m in a new fund that will build the capacity of infrastructure organisations that support frontline civil society groups in England, it announced today in the Giving White Paper.
The Local Infrastructure Fund will get the lion’s share of the government’s financial commitment to initiatives aimed at boosting the giving of time and money to charities. This fund, to be delivered by the Big Lottery Fund, will “help both general and volunteering infrastructure organisations to modernise and improve the relevance of their services” to frontline organisations. This was one of the key recommendations from the NCVO’s Funding Commission.
The government will also allocate £10m to a two–year Social Action Fund that will be used to pilot “game-changing innovations” that have the potential to radically change the ways people give. Challenge prizes of up to £100,000 will be awarded for ideas that encourage people to be more generous, such as, potentially, the best new mobile phone volunteering application.
Charities and social enterprises can claim the prizes for themselves, while winning individuals, businesses, companies and universities can donate the cash to a charity of their choice.
The Social Action Fund will also be used to fund new models that incentivise people to give their time. Spice, a Wales-based reward scheme that gives people vouchers or discounts with local businesses when they volunteer, will receive £400,000 from Nesta and the government to roll out into various areas in England.
The Association of Charitable Foundations and Community Foundation Network will receive £700,000 to develop the Philanthropy UK website to better serve existing and would-be philanthropists, and YouthNet will get £1m over the next two years to expand the Do-it website to provide a national database of volunteering opportunities. In return, YouthNet has agreed to make this data available to other websites and Facebook has already agreed to publish the information on its site.
Giving Summit planned
The government will run a Giving Summit this autumn to bring together developers, mobile providers, charities and community groups to explore opportunities for mobile giving. At this event the government will launch a year-long national campaign to promote payroll giving to employers, and it also plans to work with payroll giving agencies to look at ways of reducing the numbers of employees that stop their giving when they move jobs.
In an effort to lead by example, ministers have pledged to take part in a 'One Day Challenge', where they commit to volunteer for a charity for one day per year. And the government has already begun providing space within its offices for charities to use; the White Paper invites others to get in touch if they would like to access government buildings.
The new Infrastructure and Social Action Funds will be additional to the £30m Neighbourhood Match Fund and the £50m Endowment Match Challenge that have already been announced under the Community First banner.
The White Paper also confirmed a number of proposals contained in the Giving Green Paper that preceded it, such as round-up-to-a-pound schemes, reductions in red tape around donating and volunteering, and reform of gift aid.
Donating via cashpoint
Alongside the White Paper, the ATM network Link has announced an agreement with the major high-street banks to enable donations to charity at cashpoint machines. The donation option, to be introduced next year, will be offered as a separate option on the ATM screen with customers able to choose from a range of preset values or enter their own amount. Individual ATM operators will be able to choose which charities will benefit and which of their ATMs will provide the service at all.
