Whilst the general principles of donation platforms are the same, each company is different and will have its own criteria for sign-up & registration.
The main types of platforms are:
- Donations platforms for single and / or recurring gifts
- Donation platforms associated with fundraising pages
- In memoriam platforms
- Online shopping platform
- Others: those that offer a service that facilitate the generation of income on our behalf e.g., auction and raffle prize draws. Others also refers to payroll giving third parties such as CAF, Charites Trust, and Charitable Giving
Some have all the above capabilities.
There are those that have been established for quite some time and are well respected in the third sector and some that are too new to comment on.
Our recommended platforms of choice
JustGiving
Just Giving is our preferred option and platform of choice.
Recommended for individuals and company fundraising – when fundraising for 1 charity.
Some key benefits of the JustGiving platform that make it our preferred option:
- Well-established, recognised, competitive and industry approved and market leaders in their area
- Excellent for supporters to navigate, quick and easy to use and comes with a robust fundraiser journey for fundraising pages created, e.g., regular emails, updates/progress on fundraising targets, and suggestions for increasing fundraising total are sent to the page creators at appropriate intervals of their fundraising journey
- Good customer care services, offering live chat, lots of guides and helpful information and specific account managers assigned to charities
- We have a fully automated internal process in place for Fundraising pages created and gift processing. This is largely due the charity friendly and robust mechanism for data retrieval, usage, and GDPR standards) which means less time spent on processing and more money towards helping people with MND and where the need is the greatest.
- 0% platform fee and sensible transaction fees
- Gift Aid processing (through Swiftaid) with a 5% fee – this saves a lot of time for a charity when the platform processes Gift Aid. It takes a great deal of time and resource for the charity to claim the gift aid, therefore ultimately saves cost when the platform claims gift aid on their behalf.
- Excellent for providing quarterly updates, reporting, and investing in new technology and integrations
Give as You Live
For individuals, companies and online shopping – recommended for when fundraising for more than 1 charity.
- Can donate up to 5 charities
- Quick and easy to set up for supporters
- Robust and easy check out service – same check out payment processing as Amazon
- Offer voluntary contribution for the donator to pay for platform fees - so that the charity does not have to
- Partially integrated internal process developed
- Flexible to work with and accommodating to changing their systems to support bespoke requests
- Good customer and after sales service - helpline, live chat, and email support
Your Cause
Recommended for corporate fundraising for companies and for employees of companies.
- Excellent for companies who want to get their employees involved in giving to charitable causes
- Well-established and use Charites Trust to make payments
Work for Good
Recommended for corporate fundraising.
- Excellent for companies who want to get involved in giving to charitable causes
- donating a % of profits of the sale of an item or service to the charity of your choice
Much Loved
Recommended for in memoriam pages / tribute funds.
- Well-established, recognised in the third sector
- Partially integrated internal process developed
- Excellent for funeral directors / services and individuals – custom pages
- Event pages can be linked to Just Giving
- Open and flexible to make changes – more recently
Facebook
Social media platform.
- Can use third party tools (e.g., Give Panel) to help connect and register FB supporters of our charity
- No fees
- Can customise events and link to various social media channels
- Quick and easy to set up for supporters
Enthuse
Event partners for London Marathon, Great North Run and other third-party events.
- Quick and easy to set up
- Gift Aid processing (through Swiftaid) with a 5% fee – this saves a lot of time for a charity when the platform processes Gift Aid. It takes a great deal of time and resource for the charity to claim the gift aid, therefore ultimately saves cost when the platform claims gift aid on their behalf.
- Relatively responsive to queries
- Partially integrated internal process developed
Go Fund Me
Can be used for crowdfunding and individual charity fundraising.
- Pay through PayPal
- Offers reporting
- This platform is under internal development for fundraising pages created and income processing - as it is quite popular and is growing
Key Information and Considerations
Costs Considerations
Despite some platforms advertising "no costs" to the charity, all donation platforms have associated costs. Even when their platform fees are zero, there will always be credit card transaction fees and each platform use various payment processing solutions. The charges on fees vary. There are other charges to consider such as statement fees, Gift Aid processing fees as well as “voluntary contribution” solutions that the donor can opt to pay on behalf of the charity.
Other in-house costs include, resource and staff time spent on processing the donations and data management. Many donation platforms are not flexible with the data that they supply, which can cause a tremendous amount of time to process the gifts, which can outweigh the revenue received from the platform. This is particularly applicable for smaller, and less industry used platforms; this needs to be considered before a request for registration is made.
See also section under Sign-up and Registration.
GDPR and consent
All donation platforms must comply with GDPR when managing and storing data. Some are better at this than others, whilst some feel rather "weak" in their approach to data management, consent, security, and privacy statements. Therefore, careful consideration is needed when considering a potential new platform, this includes having sight of any data that is managed outside of the UK or by a third party.
All contractual information regarding GDPR, and privacy statements need to be approved by the Head of Data & Insight, Julie Desborough.
Contracts & Terms and Conditions
Most contracts are online and are a part of the T & C's when you sign up / register, therefore it is important that you do not sign-up and / or register your interest without prior consultation with key personnel. This is done by the Head of Supporter Care, Shabz Khokhar and the Head of Finance, Jakina Matthews.
For further information, see also section under Sign-up and Registration.
The Sign-up and Registration Process
Before we sign up with any new donation platform, there is a process that must be followed.
- All initial enquiries about a new donation platform are to be sent to the digital team to carry out an initial assessment. The email address to send your request to is [email protected]
- The digital team will carry out the initial assessment by asking the platform to answer a set of questions, which help us to ascertain the potential partnership
- The assessment will include sector analysis on which other charities are using the platform as well as income potential
- If there is potential, the digital team will inform the Head of Supporter Care, Head of Data Insight and the Head of Finance who will evaluate internal processes for gift processing and data management. They will also consider all areas of compliance. You can read more about this within the Compliance section of this page.
- The Head of Finance or Head of Facilities may be required to carry out additional financial checks, including a credit check, however, this will be decided by the criteria needed for each supplier or donation platform provider
- If Sign-up or Registration is agreed, registration will be completed by the Head of Supporter Care and team and / or the Head of Finance and team. No one else in the Association has authority to register with donation platforms
- Any new sign-up will need the digital team to set up our profile and content to ensure consistent branding and messaging
Special Note: the sign-up and registration with a donation platform is restricted to specific individuals as there are compliance sections to complete and possible payment gateway integrations required. You can read more about this within the Compliance section of this page.
Compliance
Most reputable donation platforms will complete compliance and due diligence on the organisation that they are partnering with. The standards have been set by governing bodies such as The Fundraising Regulator, The Gambling Commission, The Charity Commission, and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). There are also other governing bodies that may apply to agreements e.g. The Advertising Standards Committee (ASA) and The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP).
Compliance and due diligence checks
- KYC (Know Your Customer/Client) *
- KYB Know Your Business)
- AML (Anti-Money Laundering) **
- PCI (Payment Card Industry) - data security standard
Special note: any reputable business can and should perform compliance and due diligence checks before committing to working with an organisation.
The sign-up process means that some or all the following can be requested
- Trustees - names and addresses, D.O.B, length of service etc - for some or all the MND Association trustees (this information is held with our finance team (our Treasurer) access is limited
- Directors' personal details - names and addresses, D.O.B, length of service etc
- Photo identification for the above
- Company House verification checks
- Charity Commission registration validation
- 2 -part authentication for login access to dashboard for the user e.g., mobile number and / or email address
Other information that will be needed
- Bank details, sort code, account number, account name
- IBAN/SWIFT number
- Registered address
- Maybe more, dependent on platform criteria
Integration to Payment Gateway
Some donation platforms pay straight into our bank, some only work with your own existing payment gateways e.g., they will want to integrate / connect to our Association Stripe or PayPal account. This requires authorisation by the Head of Supporter Care, Shabz Khokhar and the Head of Finance, Jakina Matthews to action this request, if agreed.
It should be noted that the process that differentiates each donation platform payment from each other needs to be defined, to avoid reconciliation issues.
Data processing
Supporters’ donation and personal information may / may not be available to download from the platform’s dashboard, this is dependent on the type of platform and / or GDPR consent statements that the platform has in place. There may be separate reports to download and import data onto our database for single and recurring donations. There may be data available for fundraising pages and for Gift Aid claims.
Depending on the maturity and advancement of the donation platform, this may or may not be automated in house. Naturally, a manual process is extremely time consuming for association staff and can sometimes outweigh the donations raised on micro-donation sites. The data team will consider what information can be captured on our database or not, in terms of consent and further contact. This will need to be evaluated.
Please note: all data is processed by the Supporter Care or by the Data team.
For further information on donation platform comparisons, benefits, and any challenges that you may encounter, you can contact and discuss this with the Head of Supporter Care, Shabz Khokhar.
Direct Dial: 01604 611830
Email: [email protected]