# JustGiving launches online vouchers for Christmas

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2003/11/20/justgiving-launches-online-vouchers-christmas/
- Published: 2003-11-20T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Online donation site JustGiving.com is offering an alternative Christmas present
this year – tax-efficient vouchers to donate to charity.**

Gold, frankincense and myrrh are all very well but they’re not very tax-efficient.
JustGiving.com’s new Christmas voucher service enables you to give the gift of a
charity donation to a friend or family member, and make it go further using the 
Gift Aid. Just decide how much you wish to give, buy it online, and then the recipient
receives an e-card with your message and the option to donate it to a charity of
their choice. Even better, the donation can be tax-efficient if you complete the
Gift Aid declaration when buying the gift.

Tax-efficient charity vouchers are not new. Charities Aid Foundation was selling
them around 10 years ago for donors who used their CAF Charity Account. JustGiving.
com’s service however updates the concept and makes it available to anyone with 
a credit or debit card.

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When buying the voucher you first need to choose one of four Christmas e-cards. 
Then you simply decide how much to donate – JustGiving’s suggested amounts are £
10, £25, £50, £100 and £250, but you can choose your own figure. You customise the
subject line of the e-mail you wish to send to the recipient and include your name,
to prevent the recipient mistaking it for unsolicited e-mail. You then round that
off with a short message to the recipient.

The recipient then gets to choose which charity to donate their gift to, selecting
from over 400 UK charities arranged by category such as children, disability and
social welfare. The redemption process takes seconds once you’ve selected the beneficiary
charity, and you will receive an e-mail notification when the voucher has been redeemed,
including a standard thank-you message from the beneficiary charity.

This simple but effective service will require further promotion by participating
charities. It would make a useful news item on their Web sites and on any e-mail
newsletters they plan to send out in the run-up to Christmas.

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