CAF creates online Direct Debit platform for smaller charities
Howard Lake | 26 June 2014 | News
The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) has created a new online giving platform to help small and medium sized charities process donations online and offline, and make it easier for them to accept regular donations by Direct Debit.
CAF Donate will simply charge charities a small amount for each transaction. It will not charge a set-up fee or regular monthly charge.
Accepting Direct Debit donations
Only a small minority of charities accept Direct Debit donations. According to the Payments Council, 91% of charities do not accept Direct Debits, whether online or offline.
Chris Allwood, Senior Product Developer at the Charities Aid Foundation, said:
“Too often charities are put off setting up online giving because of the perceived cost, both in terms of processing fees and administrative costs. We’ve set up CAF Donate to make it easier for these charities to accept donations and fundraise”.
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Whether or not they choose to use the Direct Debit option, charities using CAF Donate will be able to process other donations, whether received by post, phone or online, all within the one system. Offline donation data can be uploaded to CAF Donate.
Two versions
Charities can choose a basic CAF Donate profile or the full service.
The basic profile provides charities that do not have their own website an online page to help with their fundraising efforts. The full service gives charities the tools to fundraise through their own website and via mobile phones and Facebook. It also offers charities a widget to allow supporters to donate to them without leaving the charity’s website.
The full service also automatically includes Gift Aid reclamation to make every donation go that bit further.
[youtube height=”450″ width=”800″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W4Cq7laD1Q[/youtube]
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.