National Funding Scheme is now open to all UK charities
Howard Lake | 1 July 2015 | News
The National Funding Scheme, the charity that runs the giving platform DONATE for arts organisations, is today making the platform available to all UK charities. From 1 September it will further expand it to any UK organisation with a charitable purpose.
DONATE launched in 2013 as a tool specifically to help arts organisations raise more money. Since then it has helped over 350 arts charities.
Individuals use it to make a donation using their mobile device via SMS text, web app, QR codes, Near-Field Communication. Soon DONATE will also provide a route to donate via ApplePay.
The charity has already been working with a small number of non-arts organisations who have used the platform during live fundraising events. For examples, Flannels for Heroes raised £27,000 at their charity cricket match for Combat Stress and Walking with the Wounded.
Seamus Keating, chair of the NFS said:
“We are hugely fortunate that the Charity Commission granted us the ability to work outside the sector we launched in and provide DONATE to any organisation that has ‘charitable purpose’. We are delighted that our technologies, which help charities maximise opportunities to capture immediate donations will now be made available to all kinds of organisations from schools, to church groups, hospitals, voluntary organisations and football teams. This means that any organisation with a charitable purpose can use DONATE to fundraise even if they are not recognised as a registered charity or exempt charity.”
He added that the expansion was particularly timely given that research from the Payments Council shows that for the first time more transactions are by non-cash than by cash.
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What counts as ‘charitable purpose’?
The National Funding Scheme uses the definition of ‘charitable purpose‘ set out in the Charities Act 2011. These are the 13 descriptions of purposes that “describe broad areas of potentially charitable activity”.
They range from some that have their roots in the original Elizabethan Charitable Uses Act of 1601 such as the prevention or relief of poverty, to more modern introductions such as the advancement of human rights and the advancement of amateur sport.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.