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60. Making an online donation to your chosen charity
Oakley member LIZ WHITEHEAD has researched the various websites which enable you to make an online donation to a charity
• Why should I make a donation on line? - It’s quicker and easier for both the person sponsoring and for the charity which is benefiting from the donation.
• Which are the websites to look at? - There are several good websites which have the information in a clear format that is easily accessible. I have researched here two biggest and explain about how their sites work.
• The largest, and most popular, charity giving website is currently Just Giving. Just Giving was set up in 2000 and has been helping people raise money for charities ever since. There are over 8,000 charities registered with Justgiving and the website has helped these good causes raise over £450 million. They have over 8 million users, making them the largest online community of charity supporters in the world.
Here’s how it works:
1. When you donate £10 on their site, they send 100% to the charity by the end of the week.
2. They then reclaim Gift Aid from the government, which takes about a month, adding £2.82 to your donation.
3. It’s only when they receive the Gift Aid that they charge their 5% fee, along with credit/debit card/PayPal charges, and send the rest to the charity. If you are not a UK taxpayer and they can’t reclaim Gift Aid, their fee comes out of your donation. Since over 85% of donations through JustGiving are eligible for Gift Aid, our charities always end up raising more with us.
So, for every £10 you give as a UK taxpayer, the charity receives almost £12, and they get it much faster than they would otherwise.
This service is widely used and makes charity giving easier. They charge charities a fee of £15 a month to be registered with the service and there’s no start up fee. It also makes claiming gift aid easier as it is already done for the charity.
Oakley members Emily Summers, Emma Leigh, Chris Searing and Julian Wilde have all used Justgiving to collect donations for their individual charity events and will be pleased to offer guidance
 
Virgin money giving was created as a not-for-profit business by Virgin Money. The idea to launch Virgin Money Giving came as a result of Virgin Money’s sponsorship of the London Marathon. They differ from Justgiving in that they charge no monthly subscription fee to the charities that are registered with them and are a not-for-profit organisation.
It works in broadly the same way as justgiving.com except that they charge a single start-up fee of £100 + VAT from each charity and 2% of donations. Gift Aid is reclaimed from the Government and passed to charities in full.
Both websites are relatively easy to use and provide safe and secure ways to donate online using a credit/debit card. Remember it is always advisable to check out all the alternatives before deciding which site to use. There are some smaller fish out there too which can be easily accessed with a quick Google session.
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