Freelance Fundraiser's Jottings

This isn’t really a fundraising piece for the blog, although I’ll end it with something that is fundraisng related.

Today, 4 July 2008, my Grandmother, Cissie Richards, was 100 years old. Now I know that this isn’t so rare these days, with the number of centenarians growing year on year, but I’ve never known anyone 100 years old, let alone a member of my immediate family.

To have got to this amazing age is an achievement in itself. Cissie lived through two world wars, (During the 2nd world war she brought up two sons in a part of London effected by the Blitz); lived for her first 40 years in the pre-NHS era, surviving the flu epidemic after the 1st world war and all the other diseases and illnesses that killed off many others; never went into hospital until she was well into her 90s and lived independently until she was 95.

Eighteen months ago she fell out of bed and broke her thigh. in the operating theatre she had to be resucitated and went on to develop pneumonia. We never believed she would pull through, but once again she did and was back in the care home walking with a frame in less than 2 months!

Even this week she was in bed with an infection and this morning, as I travelled from Yorkshire to London for her special day, we were warned that the home were really concerned about her condition. Yet she perked up enough to get dressed and come down to the special entertainment they had laid on for her, the residents and our family.

Cissie is a fighter and as made an amazing achievement reaching her 100th birthday. I love her, respect her and appreciate all she’s been to me over the past 50 or so years.

Oh, what is the fundraising point? Well, as a legacy prospect she would have been “hot” 10 years ago when she finally sold her home. However, 10 years of rent and then care home costs have depleted her assets to next to nothing. It’s a fact of life that as more and more people live longer, because of improved healthcare, diet and housing conditions, so the value of their assets will deplete, leaving less for personal and charitable bequests. The future of legacy income for charities is uncertain, although it will still play a major role and be the most cost-effective means of raising funds.

At the end of the day, I’d rather have my Nan around for as long as possible, to be an inspiration to my children, nephews and neices and others! Happy Birthday Nan and many more of them!

Don’t get me wrong, I love technology. All those new gadgets that make life easier, keep us in touch and are generally for the good of the whole. What bugs me is where new technology actually makes things harder or more difficult or costly for people.

Take, for example, all the changes at Royal Mail. A couple of years ago they introduced new machines that could sort the mail, instead of using people. “Great!” You might think, “that’ll make life so much easier and speed up the service”. But then came the catch. No longer could you send mail in larger C4 sized envelopes without incurring higher postal fees.

For many charities, this involved re-designing newsletters and mailings, in order that they could either be folded in half or reduced to A5 size paper to fit the smaller acceptable size. Obviously, there was a cost involved for many charities, but overall they coped.

So, it’s back to normal, or so you’d think. It’s now emerged that these super-whizzo sorting machines are incapable of determining when a FREEPOST envelope has had a stamp stuck on it! As a result, not only are the charities having to pay the FREEPOST fee, the Royal Mail are also coining in the stamp fee from the donor who thought they were saving the charity money! So, double income for Royal Mail and an unecessary charge for the charities using FREEPOST.

The Royal Mail have said they will reimburse charities for the number of double-charged stamped FREEPOST envelopes they receive, although one RM office has told a hospice in Derbyshire it will only reimburse them the once. The point is, it costs time and money for charities to monitor all their FREEPOST mail and chase it up with Royal Mail. They won’t get reimbursed for this, only the postage cost per envelope.

It has led to some charities asking donors to cross out the word FREEPOST on the envelope, when using a stamp, in an effort to stop the double-charging.

I find it incredulous that when we have so much cutting edge technology at our fingertips, Royal Mail cannot get a machine designed that can properly scan envelopes for such obvious things as stamps, printed words (when it already reads hand-written postcodes) or barcodes. The sooner new independent mail delivery services begin to offer decent services to all, the better!

One charity support organisation, Company Solutions, has already called on charities to boycott the use of FREEPOST until Royal Mail get their act together. To sign up to their campaign, click here.

It really is a one way game with Royal Mail. They seem to want all the benefits, even if it results in others experiencing extra costs, just so their systems work and they cut their costs. The days of friendly Postman Pat who brought a human face to the service really do seem to be over.

What’s your image of a charity shop? Scruffy? Tatty? Musty? Full of old ladies? If this is your image, when did you last visit a charity shop? You might find things have changed generally…

Charity shops provide a very valuable resource to local communities at several levels:

• They raise money for good causes. Whether this is a local hospice or a national charity for the old, homeless or starving, all charity shops raise much needed funds to enable charities to fulfil their work.
• They are very green places. Charity shops are at the forefront of green recycling. They not only recycle clothes, but also household goods, books, CDs, DVDs, computer games, toys. Things that would otherwise have found their way into landfills. Some even sell furniture, which enables homeless people who have been offered a flat or house the chance to furnish it at a price they can afford.
• They provide for people on low or no incomes. Parents can dress their children and themselves with good quality clothes at a fraction of the High Street Stores prices. OK, they’re used and possibly a little dated, but if you shop around, you’d be amazed what you find. I use them to buy shirts. I like the “Oxford” style shirts and have no trouble picking up M&S, Ben Sherman, Polo and other leading brands at a fraction of the “new” price. A good machine wash and no one would have a clue where it came from!
• They offer a social service. Many charity shop managers I know talk about the customers, especially elderly widows, who pop in 2 or 3 times a day, not so much to buy, but for a bit of company and a chat. Because it’s a charity running it, they feel like they can trust the staff and volunteers and they often become friends, rather than customers.
• The times, they are a changing. If you thought charity shops were about old clothes, think again! Oxfam piloted specialist music stores and bookshops. Several charities now have specialist shops. Did you know that Oxfam has launched fashion boutiques? They will provide shoppers with high-quality, desirable clothing and look to turn the traditional concept of a charity shop on its head. The boutiques were launched in response to shoppers’ views that they wanted a more contemporary shopping experience.
• Move over High Street charity shops, the virtual ones have arrived! Many charities now have charity shops on Ebay. This offers them the chance to auction high demand brand names and achieve much higher prices than they’s get in one of their High Street shops. A good example is St. Gemma’s Hospice in Leeds. Check out their Ebay shop at: http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/stgemmasshop

So next time you pass a charity shop, don’t look down your nose at it, go inside and make the most of this unique place - you might just come out with a real bargain too!

My weekly copy of Third Sector magazine arrived as usual this week and with it came a fold out flyer from the Media Trust, a charity that claims it: “covers all aspects of media and communications training for charity and voluntary organisations across the UK.” It was a list of their forthcoming training events.

I eagerly scanned it to see what they were putting on for all the charities in the north of the country, but out of 19 courses, only one on Podcasting was being held north of a line from London to Cardiff (via Bristol). Given the number of fundraisers and charities based in the north, that seems a rather poor share, when London has 16 of the 19 courses based there.

As well as the cost of the courses, northern fundraisers would also have to add the cost of travel and considerable time (plus the possibility of overnight accommodation if the course starts in the morning and they want to try and get cheaper travel tickets which are not usually available until after 09:00). It makes it much harder for those of us in the north to take advantage of such training.

This southern bias was confirmed recently, when one of the Yorkshire Institute of Fundraising Committee rang the Media Trust, to ask if they could provide someone to lead a training day on working with the media for us. They were told by the person at the Media Trust who answered the ‘phone that this was not possible, because they only run courses in London!

Now it seems to me that this is not only an insult to the hundreds of fundraisers and the charities that employ them “up North”, but is also a slight on the many excellent media industry people who run newspapers, TV companies and radio stations in the north. Are the Media Trust so London-bound that they don’t recognise or know media people in the north who would probably jump at the opportunity to engage with the voluntary sector?

Come on Media Trust, get your act together. There are people up here chomping at the bit for some decent media training opportunities.

Following the Government’s decision to allow charities to continue benefiting from Gift Aid at the pre-tax cut rate of 22p in the £1, the Institute of Fundraising, after consultation with the HMRC, has come up with the following text to go on all Gift Aid declarations:

“If you Gift-Aid your donation, ‘x charity’ will continue to receive an additional 28p. ‘X charity’ can claim Gift Aid tax relief of 25p on every pound you give. HM Revenue & Customs will also be operating transitional provisions for Gift Aid donations made from 6 April 2008 until 5 April 2011, paying a Government supplement of 3p on every pound you give.”

For any charities that had already reprinted their Gift Aid and other donation literature to take into account the new reduction in income tax rate, the HMRC have said it will be OK to continue using these, until existing supplies need to be replaced. There is no requirement to either shred or reprint any materials, which would only be a wasted cost to those charities.

It is important that all charities, no matter how large or small, should continue to make best use of this opportunity to continue to promote the use of Gift Aid and try to increase the % of donors taking advantage of if. In this way, they will lessen the impact of the reduction in income when the 3 year special provision comes to an end.

For more information about Gift Aid and how to make the most of it, check out the Institute of Fundraising’s special briefings at: www.tax-effective-giving.org.uk/downloads.html

For years the Institute of Fundraising and major charities have been trying to get the cost down of making donations via TXT on your mobile. One of the last major hurdles is VAT, as the mobile phone companies say they can’t distinguish between the various premium-rate lines they operate.

The HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs) stated 2 years ago that VAT was not chargeable on text donations, but the phone companies are charging charities an estimated £1m a year in VAT. Neither are they then returning the money in the form of a corporate donation.

However, at last the HMRC and the telephone companies have met and begun discussions on how to get round this problem. It would appear that all the phone networks are in favour of the no VAT charge, but they claim it is a very complex business and there will be no quick fixes to it.

We will have to wait and see if the phone companies follow through their words with real actions, in the meantime, try and choose a more cost effective way to donate to your favourite charities, preferably one that lets you Gift Aid your donation as well. That way, your £1 is worth £1.28 to the charity, which is better than losing 17p in unnecessary VAT!

In the process of setting up my freelance fundraising business, I looked on the web for help, advice and support. I came across a couple of really useful links, one is Dr Alan Rae’s “Punch Above Your Weight” training workshops, which show small businesses or organisations how to create a bigger impression on the Internet (thereby dramatically increasing your chance of getting top results in Goggle Search Engine searches.

As a result of attending one of these fascinating days, I was also made aware of an online networking group for people, like myself, who are small business owners and who can harness the potential of online networking to not only get support and advice from others in similar positions, but also to increase their Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and be easily “found” by Google and other search engines.

Anyone can join Ecademy for free. Those who decide to pay a subscription (2 levels) obviously are enabled to make more use of the facilities and opportunities the site provides.

Whilst not obviously something that charity-employed fundraisers would necessarily want to join, it does have a good number of people from small, sole traders, to millionaire entrepreneurs who are involved in charitable activities and fundraising. This could be useful for prospect research for majors donors, etc. You might also find people with skills that could offer your charity advice and help, especially with regards to online marketing and marketing in general.

Please forgive me for straying off the fundraising theme slightly, into the world of mobile computing. This does relate to fundraising, as I, like many others, rely on mobile computing to do our work.

Back in January I bought one of these incredible Asus Eee PCs for my daughter. This little miracle of technology came singing and dancing out of its box, ready for the user to start working on it, within 30 seconds of pressing the on button!

What is so special about the Eee PC is that it is slightly bigger than your typical Bible (version irrelevant), weighs less than a kilo, hasn’t got an ounce of Microsoft inside it (Hoooooray!) and costs under £200! (OK, you have to add VAT at £35) It runs on Linus-based software, which means Open Office and other FREE open source applications, so you never have to pay for the software, which is as good (and in some cases better) than MS software

It has everything you need: software, webcam, stereo speakers, mic, even voice activated commands. You can play your MP3s, record short videos, play some wicked games (Penguin Race is awesome) and best of all it hasWiFi built in, so you can log on to any wireless network (like the one on the National Express East Coast train I’m writing this on!).

Here’s the bit I really want to get over though. I started to enquire about 3G USB broadband access, you know, the little dongles you plug in in order to access the internet anywhere. People kept telling me it wouldn’t work with Linux. However, the really nice people at the Harrogate 3 shop took time to test it out on one of their USB modems and using the built in Wizard on the Eee PC, it’s a doddle! Just look for the 3G connection in Network>Create, then search for the network (i.e. in this case 3 UK), then search for the right country and click “Finish”. Virtually 100% Internet access wherever you are.

My apologies again to those who came looking for fundraising, but one’s mind can wander off it occasionally and mine did just now!

One last thought (for the time being) about the recent Budget decisions on Gift Aid, that seems to get quietly ignored each year, is the failure of the Government to do anything about Corporate Gift Aid. In the past, (pre-2000), when companies gave donations to charities, the charity could claim back the tax on that gift, just as they did with individuals who made Deeds of Covenants with the charity.

All that changed with the introduction of Gift Aid in 2000. The Government scrapped the tax on company donations going to charities and instead allowed the companies to claim it back for themselves. The rationale, it appears, was that the companies would give higher donations, that after they claimed back the tax would mean it cost them less. For example, if they gave £128, they could claim back the tax, which would have been £28, so the charity got £128 and the company only forked out £100. Fine, if companies and individuals thought that way. Reality: they don’t!

So when asked why they hadn’t changed anything about corporate donations and Gift Aid, following last year’s Gift Aid consultation, it would appear the Treasury officials will only respond by saying, “It remains under review”. It’s easy to keep quiet about something you, the Government, introduced that went totally pear-shaped, isn’t it Mr Darling?

Following on from my previous blog about the reduction in Gift Aid from 28p to 25p for every £1 donated, the Chancellor, Alistair Darling (don’t you love that name?) made a surprise move in his recent Budget. The rate of Gift Aid, which was based on income tax at a rate of 22p in the £1, is not going to change for charities for the next three financial years, as a way to lessen the blow to income when the tax rate falls to 20p in the £1.

He also announced some tweaking of the system to make it easier for charities to collect and claim their Gift Aid. However, he failed to go along with the majority opinion, which was to change radically the way that Gift Aid is calculated, from the current system based on individuals having to declare they want the charities to claim the Gift Aid, to a system where it is given by the HMRC based on the proportion of a charity’s donors who are tax payers. This would have greatly reduced the time and money it costs charities to administrate Gift Aid. Still, I suppose we mustn’t grumble!

The thing that has really annoyed so many charities, is that there was no warning that he was going to keep Gift Aid at the same level for another 3 years. As a result, hundreds of charities have been getting all their donation literature re-printed, at considerable cost to some organisations, in line with the lower Gift Aid rate we were due to move to. Now they have piles of unusable literature, because the facts and figures are incorrect.

Sometimes a surprise can backfire and in this case I doubt the Chancellor will be offering to compensate the waste of time and materials his unexpected announcement has caused.