Current cheapest third-party service for small charity to receive donations

John_Gray

It's some time since I looked into this, in the days when Virgin Money used to provide a no-cost service for charities to receive donations (made by any one of credit card, debit card, faster transfer) and pass them on to the charity, with Gift Aid (if the donor could do this).
Can anyone say what is the cheapest (and reliable!) way for doing this at the moment?  

[Incidentally, I have found Peoples Fundraising to be unreliable...]

lr1277

I have no experience in this area, but as a donor I use Charities Aid Foundation Online (cafonline), who are a charity themselves.
They have various ways of giving including card payments and a CAF account. I think they charge me 4% after the card processor has taken their cut. That 4% includes their fee and a donation to another charity whose name I forget.
i like them because they have a responsive help desk and I trust them not to claim giftaid on my donation, because some of my donations are from wins on the lottery or premium bonds.
I don’t know if they are the cheapest, but I haven’t heard anything to say they are not reliable.

Edited to add as they are a charity I looked them up on the Charity Commission website so I got an idea of how much they were taking in, hence what they made and what they distributed. I wouldn’t donate to a small (and sometimes big) charity any other way except maybe with a cash donation.

John_Gray

Thank you!  I have come across CAF in my travels.  I have also just come across "Charity Digital", which give a list of fees for a variety of platforms, and Charity Excellence, which gives more platforms but less tabular information..

A number of charity platforms seem to have adopted the "give the platform a tip" model (perhaps even as ludicrously high as 16% of your donation!) rather than charging a platform fee, which tip fortunately you can reduce to any figure you like, even 0%.

[By the way, even if the source of your charitable donation is lottery or premium bond wins, you can still allow the charity to claim Gift Aid - provided you pay sufficient income tax or capital gains tax.  This wasn't clear from your post - to me, at least!]

Savvy_Sue

John_Gray said:

[Incidentally, I have found Peoples Fundraising to be unreliable...]

Out of interest, is the 'unreliability' at the donor's end, or at the charity's end as recipient?

And are you asking on behalf of a charity, wondering which platform(s) to register with? 

I think one of the issues is that some platforms may be tied in with the larger events, making it easier for fundraisers to set up their pages. I know when I worked for a charity we were registered with at least two platforms, probably for that reason. And CAF doesn't have a monthly charge for the charities who sign up: it is the donors who are asked to support them. 

Another reason to be signed up with multiple platforms is to make it easier to be found: if someone is used to Virgin, or to JustGiving, and they go there and can't find YOUR charity, they may give up. Personally I always recommend people to go to the charity's website in that case, and find out what giving methods they highlight. 

I made a comment here about why the platforms charge ... and I do think it's important they are well resourced and properly run!

John_Gray

I found with Peoples Fundraising that the verification process that they were attempting to perform with my credit-card issuer would always result in a rejected transaction.  The credit-card issuer said that the problem was most definitely not at its end, which seems fair since it is only ever Peoples Fundraising with whom I have ever had this problem!  The charity approached Peoples Fundraising about this problem, but they were of little help.

I am attempting to recommend to the charity that they choose a more reliable platform, hence my original post.

I always go to the relevant charity's website to find their donation information.  Are you saying that [some] people really search random giving-platforms for charities to which they wish to contribute?

Of course platforms have to be funded to keep in business - what I am objecting to is excessive profiteering off the charitable-giving process!

Savvy_Sue

John_Gray said:

I always go to the relevant charity's website to find their donation information.  Are you saying that [some] people really search random giving-platforms for charities to which they wish to contribute?

Not that exactly, but suppose your 'default' giving service is GoodGiving (which I just invented). You regularly support the local cats home that way, but then you bump into someone who is raving about how much their grandchildren are enjoying the newly reopened Adventure Playground, where they're fundraising to replace the aerial runway. You think you'd like to help, but you can't find the playground on GoodGiving, and you don't want the bother of setting yourself up on another platform.