It made me think about our charity clients and the many new ways of collecting donations. In the same way the street collector made it easy for me to give it is essential that charities make it easy for supporters to make cashless donations – from online fundraising platforms and donation buttons to QR Codes and contactless devices.
In October 2022 Give a Little celebrated reaching £12m in donation revenues a significant milestone for over 4,700 charities who have made the move to cashless fundraising with the platform.
Just because someone is comfortable throwing change into a collection bucket doesn’t mean they will be comfortable to tap and donate. It is important to find the right way to support donors. Here are some suggestions in the cashless world:
Contactless devices come in all shapes and sizes. For smaller charities an inexpensive card reader like SumUp, Zettle or Square might be enough to get started. They are well established, and the devices are simple to set up. The Natural History Museum have been using contactless collection devices since 2017. Their GBx Podium can collect cash and contactless payments and within a year helped it to raise an extra £1m in donations. Initially the devices were set to collect £5. When two devises were increased to £10 there was a 32% increase in donations and when two devises increased the donation level to £30, there was a boost of 39% to donations. There are even contactless church donation plates available through GoodBox.
QR codes offer donors supporters a quick and easy way to donate. They are versatile, in that you can use them on different campaign collateral such as websites, advertising, shop windows, or donation buckets. JustGiving offers free QR codes for charities and fundraising teams registered with them or Give A Little offers QR codes as part of its free basic package.
Micro Donations Fundraising Apps. Pledjar has developed a micro-donations fundraising app enabling support to be given to charities through small acts of kindness by donating pennies from daily purchases. The app automatically rounds up pennies from everyday purchases to the nearest pound and lets users choose which charity they want to choose. For charities, it has no registration or monthly platform fees but charges a 10% transaction fee to process donations.
Text to donate has been around for a while and is still popular. Thousands of UK charities use Donr to run successful fundraising campaigns. They have processed £36m donations for 5,500+ charities. Other providers include Donate and instaGiv. 500+ charities use instaGiv and £10.5m has been raised for charity clients.
Online Fundraising Platforms There’s a lot of choice when it comes to online platforms for example JustGiving and Enthuse. Smaller charities may consider localgiving which connects grassroots organisations allowing charities to receive one-off and repeat donations, run crowdfunding campaigns, and raise funds for projects.
The next step
Michael Fitch Managing Partner at UHY Hacker Young Fitch helps Charities Prosper and can be contacted at m.fitch@uhy-uk.com or 028 90322047.
