JustGiving (and others) Fees

[cgksheff]

As I see more and more requests for donations that use internet collection sites I am reminded of how much of these donations get siphoned off.

 

JustGiving take 5%.

So a recent target seen of £200,000 will put £10,000 in their coffers. £10,000 that could be spent on the charitable aims.

 

I find it immoral.

 

Even Virgin charge charities 2% which they claim only covers costs and that additional income will be ploughed back.

 

 

BT provide a similar service free-of-charge:

https://mydonate.bt.com/event/start.html

 

They do this by using a portion of their pre-tax profits that they set aside for charitable causes. (Virgin could do the same if they wanted)

 

If you want to use internet fundraising, please consider the alternatives.

As a fundraiser, think of BT.

As a donor, consider sending funds direct to the charity?

You should always consider including a GiftAid Declaration:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/467898/Charity_GAD_Single_Donation.pdf

[andyofborg]

As I see more and more requests for donations that use internet collection sites I am reminded of how much of these donations get siphoned off.

 

JustGiving take 5%.

So a recent target seen of £200,000 will put £10,000 in their coffers. £10,000 that could be spent on the charitable aims.

 

I find it immoral.

 

Even Virgin charge charities 2% which they claim only covers costs and that additional income will be ploughed back.

 

 

BT provide a similar service free-of-charge:

https://mydonate.bt.com/event/start.html

 

They do this by using a portion of their pre-tax profits that they set aside for charitable causes. (Virgin could do the same if they wanted)

 

If you want to use internet fundraising, please consider the alternatives.

As a fundraiser, think of BT.

As a donor, consider sending funds direct to the charity?

You should always consider including a GiftAid Declaration:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/467898/Charity_GAD_Single_Donation.pdf

 

Why do you find justgiving imorral?

 

To run a service like this properly and more importantly securely costs money, a lot of money. They wil be a juicy target for those who want your credit card number and other details. They need a high degree of protection and the skilled staff to maintain it.

 

The other operators you mention do other things and can offset the cost of running the charity collecting because they have the infrastructure and staff employed doing stuff which makes them a profit.

[Robin-H]

https://www.justgiving.com/fees/eurl.axd/c712e56a355d4246be74991177efbb12

 

"JustGiving deducts a 5% fee from each donation made through the site. In return we help people raise more money, more efficiently. By leaving the costly and time-consuming stuff to us, charities can spend more time and energy on what they do best - changing more lives.

 

Here's what we're busy doing for our 5% fee:

 

Running, monitoring 24/7 and constantly improving JustGiving's technology so it can handle high levels of traffic while meeting the latest security and banking standards.

 

Constantly creating new fundraising tools and services for charities, at no extra cost.

 

Taking full responsibility for the Gift Aid we claim on charities' behalf, being regularly audited by HMRC.

 

Providing dedicated customer service for charities and their supporters, giving prompt and expert advice.

 

Giving charities full access to their data, helping them track and analyse their fundraising success.

 

Providing free support to charities (especially the small ones) on how to raise even more online.

 

Giving you a clean, junk-free experience. We'll never spam you, sell you anything or pass your personal details on to a third party. Ever.

Here’s how we charge our 5% fee

 

You donate £10.00, we deduct our 5% fee along with any card charges from our payment partners, and send the rest to the charity that week.

 

We boost your donation by 25% by reclaiming Gift Aid from the government - it usually takes about a month.

We then deduct our 5% fee and automatically send the rest over to the charity,

 

So for every £10.00 you give, the charity gets £11.74."

[Flexo]

A 5% fee seems to me to be very good value for the services that it provides.

 

I'd much rather donate to a charity this way than deal with those chuggers on Fargate who want the bank details of anyone who passes and whose services I assume cost much more than 5%.

[cgksheff]

...........

So for every £10.00 you give, the charity gets £11.74."

 

If you use a charity's own donation links, they will also claim the Gift Aid and get their full entitlement of £12.50.

 

---------- Post added 05-02-2018 at 17:14 ----------

 

A 5% fee seems to me to be very good value for the services that it provides.

........

 

Give that 5% direct to the Charity instead.

[Robin-H]

If you use a charity's own donation links, they will also claim the Gift Aid and get their full entitlement of £12.50.

 

---------- Post added 05-02-2018 at 17:14 ----------

 

 

Give that 5% direct to the Charity instead.

 

One of the main points of JustGiving is to provide a platform where individuals can make their own donation pages when fundraising, e.g to sponsor people for running the marathon.

 

This would be much more difficult without platforms such as JustGiving, and it would be much more difficult to track how much has been raised, and show that progress to others. JustGiving also allows people to reach a much larger audience, as a selection of fundraisers are shown on the front page, and you can also search for projects.

 

JustGiving has now collected over £4billion (as of June 2016). Whilst it would have been possible for people to donate this directly to charity to avoid JustGiving getting their fee, it would be more difficult for people to collate, publicise and gather donations for their fundraising actives without it, and I believe charities will have greatly benefitted because of this.

 

The fee seems good value to me.

[cgksheff]

As mentioned, BT offer the same platform.

I wish more people would use them.

5% of £26 billion would be an extra £520 million to the charities.

[Robin-H]

As mentioned, BT offer the same platform.

I wish more people would use them.

5% of £26 billion would be an extra £520 million to the charities.

 

Not that it matters to the overall point, but where did the £26 billion figure come from?

 

The cumulative total collected for charities since JustGiving launched in 2000 was £4billion as of June 2016.

[cgksheff]

Senior moment, I'm afraid. Ignore the calculation.

 

I agree that anything is better than nothing, but it doesn't have to be so.

[Flexo]

Give that 5% direct to the Charity instead.

 

Sure!

 

So the charity will need to have got my attention and have easy-to-use online payments and run this themselves. I'll donate a tenner so the 5% will be 50p.

 

The charity now need to administer the Gift Aid themselves and handle the online payments. Now they need an extra member of admin staff.