Free campaign – somebody do this please!

Gift Aid gets less valuable tomorrow.  A couple of years ago, when the basic rate of income tax was reduced, someone at the treasury worked out that there also needed to be a reduction in the Gift Aid that charities were reclaiming.  This is because Gift Aid is supposed to represent the basic rate income tax paid on the money that’s donated.

Charities were up in arms about the loss of income – which will be considerable.  So the government extended a transitional relief, which ends tomorrow, meaning that charities could still claim at 28p in the pound for donations until 5th April 2011.  Now that particular battle is over, there’s a glaring opportunity: all of your donors are aware of “the cuts” and many will know something about gift aid changing.  Why not ask them to make up the difference?

Dear Donor,

Tomorrow the Government’s Gift Aid scheme changes.  The £10 you gave us last month was worth £12.80, but the donation you give us next month will only be worth 12.50.  In these tight financial times, our cause needs your support more than ever.  Please make up the difference by clicking here and increasing your direct debit by 30p per month.

Yours etc

Of course the real opportunity here is in a larger increase from donors.  If you’re worried that donors will be cancelling their entire direct debit because you’ve reminded them, then remember that if they’re hard up (as many people are) then they are going to do this anyway (and perhaps time to re-persuade them to support?).  If this excercise would be too expensive for the income gained, then time to think again about how to do your online direct debits – and remember that when you talk to donors online, it’s much easier to drive up your gift aid revenue by going back to donors for a declaration.

There aren’t many opportunities to talk about how government policy affects charity in such a tangible way, so whilst the actual battle here is over, there’s still plenty of support – and additional donations to go and get.  After all, if that 30p wasn’t worth it, we wouldn’t have made all that fuss in the first place, would we.