Too few charities offer payroll giving to their staff
Howard Lake | 9 February 2004 | News
After 18 years of payroll giving in the UK, only 57 of the top 100 charities have got round to offering the scheme to their own employees, according to the Giving Campaign.
According to a new survey from The Giving Campaign, only 57 of the top 100 charities offer payroll giving to their staff. These would be the same charities whose fundraising staff and agencies have spent years trying to persuade commercial organisations of the value of offering payroll giving to their staff.
Indeed, fundraisers have done rather well at this, with an estimated 90% of FTSE 100 companies offering payroll giving. What a shame that many of them are denied the experience of being able to fill in the form to donate themselves by their own charity.
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The Campaign is calling on those charities currently without a scheme to set one up, “as an example for other employers to follow”, as they politely put it. To put it more bluntly they should have encouraged them to avoid any charges of hypocrisy and stop undermining the work of their payroll giving fundraisers. Promoting the scheme internally to fellow staff would be excellent training to payroll giving canvassers. “It’s so easy to set up”, say fundraisers. “So why hasn’t your charity got round to it since the late 1980s?” is the likely response from any on-the-ball corporate on the receiving end of such a pitch.
Phillip Mind, Acting Director of The Giving Campaign, pointed out that still only about 1% of UK employers offer payroll giving to their staff. Commenting on the survey findings, he said: “I think it is vital that large fundraising charities lead the way by setting up their own schemes and encourage all their corporate supporters to follow suit.”
Charities that do offer payroll giving to their staff include WWF-UK and Centrepoint. WWF-UK runs a successful scheme with 10% of staff now donating regularly through the payroll. Centrepoint has achieved a 21.5% participation rate amongst its employees. Kate Hain, Corporate Fundraising at Centrepoint, said: “Because Centrepoint asks its corporate donors to take up Payroll Giving promotions of the Give As You Earn scheme, we felt it was time to learn how to sell it to our own staff. It gave our colleagues the chance to see how the fundraising team do their work and it makes our appeal to supporters a lot more persuasive!”
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.