Fundraising sites - absolute rip off! Help please!

majaryan

Trying to fundraise for a local child in a desperate need (life or death situation).

How do we raise funds (in the UK) in an safe and transparent way but making sure that the end cause actually receives 100% of donations?

Started GoFundMe page only to find out that they charge 8.5% + 20p per donation!

Appalled by the absolute greed and believe these sites should be exposed as majority of the public is not aware of these extortionate fees charged!

Urgent advice/guidance would be greatly appreciated!

paddyandstumpy

How do you think they should charge? Or should the (secure) site be funded donations and run by volunteers?

PasturesNew

They are not greedy - they are providing a service, with secure banking systems in place, that enable people to quickly and easily set up a page for their chosen thing.

Just because their costs/model don't suit you doesn't mean they're a rip off.

There is no rip off because the charges and costs are clearly indicated.

You can set up your own web page, elsewhere - and a bank account and take Paypal donations if you wish. Then you'd just be paying the Paypal fees. Or find some other way of receiving money securely and create your own webpage.

Sites such as the one you've named make it easy, they're prepared templates, they manage the servers, you don't have to answer endless questions about security or deal with a website that's down at 3am ... etc etc. It's a service, based on their costs - they have to pay banking fees too.

What you also get is greater exposure using such sites as more people are more likely to "share" a link to such a fundraising page than "any other random page set up by anybody".

Owain_Moneysaver

Some such sites also manage Gift Aid reclaim (where applicable, and this is something many smaller charities aren't set up to manage themselves) so despite the site fees the charities actually end up getting more than they would from a direct donation with no Gift Aid.

Savvy_Sue

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

Some such sites also manage Gift Aid reclaim (where applicable, and this is something many smaller charities aren't set up to manage themselves) so despite the site fees the charities actually end up getting more than they would from a direct donation with no Gift Aid.

You're absolutely right about this, and it's one reason why I'm prepared to defend their charges - I've done Gift Aid claims for our charity and it takes my time and my manager's time - for which we're paid, apologies to those who think all charities should be run by volunteers. We LOVE the fundraising sites because they do so much of the work for us.

However, for a GoFundMe page for an individual Gift Aid wouldn't be possible - as I'm sure you know but others may not.

I don't know how GoFundMe compares with other sites, even those who are registered charity only, but anything properly organised will cost money to administer, and that money's got to come from somewhere.

sheramber

majaryan wrote: »

Trying to fundraise for a local child in a desperate need (life or death situation).

How do we raise funds (in the UK) in an safe and transparent way but making sure that the end cause actually receives 100% of donations?

Started GoFundMe page only to find out that they charge 8.5% + 20p per donation!

Appalled by the absolute greed and believe these sites should be exposed as majority of the public is not aware of these extortionate fees charged!

Urgent advice/guidance would be greatly appreciated!

You need to set up regulated body to control the donations- a trust or a non profit group or a charity.

Otherwise you get some volunteers together and organise local publicity and local events and et up a bank account to deposit them. You would need to discuss with the bank as to what type of account and how it would be operated.

Of course that all takes time and effort rather than sitting back and waiting for donations to role in.

kazzah

our fairly small charity has received over £60k in the past 9 years via one of the fundraising platforms - it saves us volunteers a HUGE amount of time - as stated they deal with all the gift aid and no matter what your opinion of them - fundraisers and Donors TRUST them - which is a massive bonus as it lends an air of credibility to any individual fundraiser - the funds are paid into our account weekly and are clear and transparent for our accountants to trace and check. For all those reasons the fee is WELL worth it in my opinion.