How Cymba’s Gift Aid solution is helping charities maximise fundraising

As the vast majority of us are experiencing every single day, the ‘cost of living crisis’ is very, very real. With prices of goods increasing and interest rates rising, the value of the money we do have is decreasing – and, as a consequence, so too is discretionary spending. 

This significantly impacts our charity partners too. With belts tightening, non-essentials are cut back on – something that was made abundantly clear by recent statistics from the Charities Aid Foundation. 

November is usually a prime fundraising month. However, research revealed that in November 2022, 3.8m fewer people donated to or sponsored someone for charity, compared to a typical, pre-pandemic November. 

The challenge, of course, is that during times of hardship and community stress, charities are in increasing demand – with the Charities Aid Foundation finding a third of charities have seen a ‘significant increase’ in year-on-year demand for their services. 

“When times are tough, people turn to charities, and charities will always help when they can,” says Rich Mullens, Product Director at Cymba. 

“In times such as these, when people aren’t necessarily able to donate as much as they would like to, it’s even more important that charities are making it as easy as possible for people to donate to their cause, and that charities are maximising the donations they’re receiving, too.” 

The SMS Gift Aid challenge

One of the ways charities can do this is through Gift Aid, which represents 25 per cent of the donation. 

If the donation is made by a UK income tax or capital gains tax payer, the charity can claim the Gift Aid. It’s a significant tax benefit, however historically, it’s one that charities haven’t exploited fully when taking SMS donations due to the complexities surrounding it. 

“This was due to a mismatch between the HMRC audit requirements for Gift Aid and the Mobile Network Operator (MNO)’s monthly reporting of successful donations,” explains Rich. 

“The charity was unable to tie every Gift Aid declaration back to the original donation through lack of detailed reporting, which was exacerbated with anomalies between MNO summary reports and the charities’ aggregator’s donations reports. 

All in all, it’s meant that many charities have been missing out on a sizeable chunk of SMS donations due to complexities outside of their control.

The solution to SMS Gift Aid

Fortunately, changes to the Gift Aid audit requirement by HMRC, on the understanding that the charities’ aggregator has been paid in full by the MNOs at the end of each month, theoretically enabled charities to maximise Gift Aid when donations are made via SMS; and Cymba quickly designed a solution to turn that theory into a reality. 

“As a result of the change and HMRC approval, we developed and deployed a mobile-friendly Gift Aid form and declaration,” says Rich. “By deploying a unique, trackable link we can pair to the mobile number, we can take consent statements, enabling our charity partners to increase the revenue they receive.” 

The solution was originally developed during COVID, when charities couldn’t fundraise face-to-face, and is now being used by many of Cymba’s charity partners to help them navigate through this current crisis. 

While every donation certainly helps a charity, maximising those donations is just as critical.

If you’d like to speak to one of the Cymba team about how you can maximise SMS Gift Aid donations, or any other aspect of fundraising during the cost of living crisis, get in touch.