fundraising

GASDS Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme

If your charity has events where you accept donations you should be reclaiming gift aid from HMRC using the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme GASDS. The maximum donation for which you can make a claim on the GASDS scheme is currently £20 but due to rise to £30 in April 2019, and it’s important to note that donations are not a membership or ticket fee

The rules are straightforward, you must already be registered for gift aid and have made a gift aid claim. Your charity can then claim a payment equivalent to gift aid on cash donations of £20 or less, without the need for the donor to complete any paperwork, or for the donor to be a taxpayer. GASDS Claims are made alongside Gift Aid claims using the Charities Online template provided by HMRC. Note that an individual donation can only be eligible for one type of claim. It is either eligible under Gift Aid or the GASDS but not both.

HMRC states that to make a GASDS claim you must have claimed Gift Aid in the same tax year as you want to claim GASDS and without incurring a penalty in the last two years. You must also have claimed Gift Aid in at least two of the last four tax years (without a two-year gap between claims). Your GASDS claim can’t be more than 10 times your Gift Aid claim – so if you receive £100 in Gift Aid donations in a tax year, you can only claim on up to £1,000 of small donations under GASDS for that year (when you actually submit the claim is irrelevant). The maximum GASDS claim is £2000.

I found a really good example on the stewardship.org.uk website:

A charity receives £8,800 in a tax year in eligible cash donations with documented Gift Aid donations of £800 and small cash donations of £8,000. The charity can make claims on all of its donations; £800 under the Gift Aid scheme, and £8,000 under the GASDS because the matching principle allows for a GASDS claim of ten times that of the Gift Aid claim for donations received in the same tax year. The charity will receive £2000 in GASDS (25% of £8000) which is currently the maximum and £200 (25% of £800) in Gift Aid from their £8800 donations.

Good to note that you should inform your supporters that they need to commit to Gift Aid to allow you to make a GASDS claim.

Funding news / Organisation News - 03/10/2019

Telling Your Story for Digital Fundraising

Telling people the mission of your charity is no longer good enough. It has become increasingly obvious in the last few months of blog reading and webinar listening that digital fundraising in 2019 will be all about telling stories about your organisation and stories about the people you support.

Whether we like it or not social media has changed the way we communicate with one another. Social media use is growing; 68% of adults use Facebook; 73% use YouTube and 82% of Baby Boomers use social media sites. When we hear a story, we relate it to our own experiences and how we feel about it. Your story should inspire your supporters to take action and share with their own personal social networks.

Story telling is the perfect way to communicate in personal terms your charity’s mission, impact and to engage with your donors and supporters. Use your website, emails and your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube ….) to inform the world about what you do and how you are helping your community. The benefits of telling the right story will be bigger donations, increased media coverage for your cause and better connections with your current and new supporters.

A good story turns people from passive to active. Making readers understand and empathise with the subjects of your story, is 100% more effective than explaining what you do in a dry academic report. Great stories resonate with an audience. Decide who your story is appealing to and craft it accordingly. Your story will take shape when you have identified: your most active supporters; what they like; what motivates them; what makes them happy/sad and what’s important to them.

Why not put together a series of stories on the same subject from different perspectives to appeal to different donor age groups and motivations.

Everyone in your organisation should be collecting stories: beneficiary stories; organisation stories; supporter stories; volunteer stories; event stories; donor stories; community stories – the list is endless. They should also be collecting images and making videos! If you want to showcase your organisation and the amazing things you do – what better way to do it than to engage those who do the work every day as well as the people in your community who benefit.

Finally, remember that donors fund people – not organisations – so make your stories about people!

Funding news / Organisation News - 02/24/2019

Christmas Fundraising Campaigns

It’s official! People give more to charities at Christmas – CAF research suggests a total amount donated for 2017 of £10.3 billion with the highest month of giving in December.

The urgency of Christmas is an ideal way to connect with your supporters and encourage them to engage in as many ways as possible: volunteering, campaigning, fundraising and attending events, via email and phone. It’s also a great way to reach new supporters, so if you are planning a Christmas campaign, take a look at these practical tips from experienced fundraisers.

You need to be clear about what it is that you want to get from a Christmas campaign. Whether it’s fundraising or recruiting volunteers, getting your message right before you start with campaign mechanics is important. Show why you need support particularly at this time of year. Tell real stories (from last year) about the problems your organisation solved and what difference donations made to people’s lives. Making your Christmas story impactful is crucial – tell your audience what the problem is an how you are fixing it with their help – have a look at how to tell your fundraising story for practical tips and a template.

Now you must decide which channels to use. Websites should be the centre of any fundraising campaign, with the campaign stories (updated weekly) and clear instructions on how to donate and how a donor can make a difference. Post every day on Twitter and Facebook in December and make your tweets and posts count by using actual photos of your beneficiaries or better still – moving images – GIFs or video. Creating video using your phone has never been easier with lots of information on YouTube and the internet on how to do it. We’ve been using a tool called Lumen5 and also Facebook stories to create little videos – if we can do it you can too!

24 days of content for website and social media is daunting but if you write a content plan and use a scheduling tools like Hootsuite or TweetDeck you’ll find sending multiple messages across different channels much easier. Be imaginative with snippets of information, personal stories, New Year plans and resolutions, reflections on the year past and a donation count of how much you have raised so far. Get inspiration from fundraising blogs

For email campaigns, keep the message succinct and poignant; try for 250 words or less. Weekly updates on a shorter message can keep the momentum more effectively than a single lengthy email. Try to personalise if you can to stand out from other Christmas appeals. Email subjects are just as important – avoid the spam filter by not using language like ‘free’, capitalised words or exclamation marks and remember only to send to those who have given permission.

And most importantly, make it easy to give. Bold and hyperlink key phrases and sentences to your website donation button. It’s crucial to have a seamless donation process in place —don’t make your willing donors work hard just to give you money. This process needs to be mobile friendly too, or you’re leaving money on the table.

Finally, keep one thing at the front of your mind: this time of year needs to be all about your donors so remember to tell them how the campaign went and to THANK them for their donations and support.

Funding news / Organisation News - 10/31/2018

Brush up your skills for Autumn with VSNS training

Available time and access to affordable training has always been a problem for the voluntary sector. According to a survey by the Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI), lack of skills in small charities cause an increased workload and poor productivity.

More than half of small charities said they had a noticeable skills gaps within their organisation and the areas identified as having the poorest performance ratings include: fundraising, engaging and working with businesses, use of IT and social media.

The impact of the skills gaps is an increased workload for colleagues, increased time to deliver work and decreased the ability to take on new work.

We are committed to improving the skills of voluntary organisations in North Surrey, to give groups the tools to carry out their work and help our community. Please take advantage of our autumn training courses on offer:

Surrey Community Foundation Fundraising Workshop, Wed 5th September – 10 am until 12 noon, VSNS Chertsey office, 6 The Sainsbury Centre, Chertsey KT16 9AG

Employment Law and HR Top Tips – Trustee Network Event, Mon 17th September – 10.30am to 12.30pm, Enterprise Rent a Car in Egham.

Recruitment of Volunteers, Tues 18^th September – 10 am to 1.30 pm, VSNS Spelthorne office, First Floor, Staines Library, Friends Walk Staines TW18 4PG

Grant Application Writing Training, Wednesday 26th September – 10 am to 3 pm, VSNS Chertsey office, 6 The Sainsbury Centre, Chertsey KT16 9AG

Digital Fundraising Training, Wed 17^th October – 10 am until 3 pm, VSNS Spelthorne office, First Floor, Staines Library, Friends Walk Staines TW18 4PG

Retaining and Motivating Volunteers, Thurs 25^th October – 9.30 am to 1 pm, VSNS Runnymede office, 6, The Sainsbury Centre, Chertsey KT16 9AG

Emergency First Aid at Work, Tues 30th October – from 9.30 am to 4 pm, VSNS Chertsey office, 6 The Sainsbury Centre, Chertsey KT19 6AG). The course will lead to an ‘Emergency in First Aid at Work’ certificate.

Volunteering and the Law, Thurs 15^th November – 10 am to 1 pm, Camberley Library, Knoll Road, Camberley GU15 3SY

Introduction to Legacy Fundraising, Tues 20^th November – 9:30 am to 1 pm, VSNS Chertsey office, 6 The Sainsbury Centre, Chertsey KT16 9AG

Funding news / Organisation News - 08/30/2018

Locations

Camberley

Ian Goodchild Centre (First Floor), Knoll Road, Camberley, GU15 3SY

01276 707565

Chertsey

6 The Sainsbury Centre, Chertsey,
KT16 9AG

01932 571122

Staines

Staines Library (First Floor), Friends Walk, Staines TW18 4PG

01784 465536

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