Fundraising agencies and platforms developments in May 2025
Howard Lake | 7 May 2025 | News
Updates from fundraising agencies and consultancies together with fundraising platforms for May 2025. Auction platform A Noble Gift launches, Swiftaid drops all Gift Aid fees and JustGiving partners with contactless donations app Toucan Collect.
JustGiving partners with contactless donations app Toucan
JustGiving has partnered with contactless fundraising app Toucan Collect, enabling charities to transform smartphones into contactless donation devices which integrate with the platform.
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Toucan Collect is a mobile app for iOS and Android that turns any compatible smartphone into a contactless donation device.
The partnership will enable charities to register with Toucan Collect using their JustGiving accounts, and thereby allow “seamless contactless donation and Gift Aid collection through smartphones”, without the need for expensive hardware.
JustGiving will be responsible for settling the funds to the charity, which will appear within their standard JustGiving account reporting.
Bill Thomson, CEO of PAYA Group, commented: “This collaboration makes contactless technology affordable for all charities, increases the number of charities who can access this capability, and enhances engagement by allowing individuals to easily manage their fundraising efforts directly from their own smartphones.
Toucan was launched in 2021 and appeared on BBC’s Dragons’ Den in February 2022, before it was acquired by PAYA Group.
Toucan Collect in partnership with JustGiving is currently available in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Cartwright Pension Trusts launches service for charities
Cartwright, specialists in building financial resilience for small to medium sized trusts, has expanded its work to provide similar solutions to charities, including a bitcoin donation service.
Cartwright Charitable Trusts has begun to work with small and medium sized charities, not-for-profits, and endowments schemes “to support them in reaching a more financially stable future, including investment income sustainability”.
Services include a portfolio health check, an unrestricted assets strategy, mission-aligned investment and a bitcoin donation solution.
Martin Mercer, Head of Charitable Trusts, at Cartwright, said: “It has never been more important for [charities] to protect assets while investing sustainability for the future…
He views the bitcoin donation service as particular useful. He said:
“The rise of digital currencies is transforming the landscape of charitable giving, with major organisations like [British] Red Cross now accepting Bitcoin. The increasing adoption of acceptance bitcoin and other cryptocurrency donations “allows charities to engage with a new generation of donors and tap into a global community, enhancing flexibility across various currencies”.
Swiftaid drops all Gift Aid fees
Swiftaid, the platform behind The Great Gift Aid Hunt and one of HMRC’s recognised software providers, no longer charges charities to process Gift Aid, including claims made via the Gift Aid Finder tool.
The move is part of Swiftaid’s intention of tackling two long-standing challenges in Gift Aid:
- £564 million goes unclaimed each year
- over 100,000 charities miss out due to complexity and cost
Swiftaid believes that it can help address these by using automation, data validation and security “to unlock Gift Aid for good, with less admin, less risk, and no cost to charities”.
“We created Swiftaid because Gift Aid is underclaimed,” said David Michael, CEO and Co-founder.
“We’re fixing the system to benefit everyone: charities, taxpayers and ultimately, the UK economy.”
Auction platform A Noble Gift launches
Kent-based auction platform A Noble Gift has launched featuring one-off gifts and experiences, many of them exclusive, to raise funds for charities. They say “100% of the winning bid [goes] to charity”.
Charities already using the site include Wings for Life, War Child, Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) and Chelsea Foundation. Since launch the platform has raised over £150,000 for charities.
Gifts and experiences can be donated by brands and benevolent individuals. Experiences have included skiing with Mike Tindall MBE, becoming a Chelsea FC Mascot for the day, and a coaching clinic with Tim Henman and three other professional coaches at Hurlingham Club in support of the Tim Henman Foundation.
Charities can offer gifts or experiences too. For example Quintessentially Foundation has offered a place on its 2025 Ride the Scottish Highlands bike ride Ride which supports both the foundation and The Firefly Project.
There are plenty of VIP gifts and experiences too, including a VIP experience to see Kylie Minogue Live at The O2 on 3 June, supporting The Style for Stroke Foundation.
Site users can bid for an item or choose to ‘buy it now’. Both options generate the same full amount to the brand’s chosen charity.
Users can search the site by charity so that they find and connect with causes that already matter to them.
While 100% of the winning bid goes to charity, A Noble Gift state that “a moderate fee will be added to the winning bid to cover operational costs, allowing A Noble Gift to connect with more brands and raise more for charities”. It is free for brands and charities to sign up.
A Noble Gift was created by four women who had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and raised over £150,000 for a local cancer charity after one of the founders survived breast cancer and wanted to fundraise more.
They focused on creating an opportunity to connect brands with charities while offering consumers the opportunity to secure an exclusive experience.
Co-founder Sarah Howick explained: “whilst raising money for a vital piece of breast cancer detection equipment, we were amazed at the generosity of so many businesses who gave us incredible exclusive
experiences that we then auctioned off. We later realised we could raise so much more for charities by connecting brands to charities with the added bonus that we were offering people exclusive experiences that might not otherwise have an opportunity to access.”
Dame Tracey Crouch DBE, Non-Executive Director of A Noble Gift, added:
“Having been through breast cancer myself and joining these incredible ladies to climb Kilimanjaro, each of us having our own personal connection to cancer, I became so invested in this journey. So much of corporate gifting goes unused and having A Noble Gift connect with brands to benefit other charities is such great concept”.
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.