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Maximising Revenue from the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS)

Thousands of UK charities benefit from the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) each year. Many organisations continue to look for ways to make the most revenue from it. This article will outline some strategies for ensuring your charity claims as much of its yearly GASDS allowance as possible.

Planning

Although you may wish to try and get the maximum amount of donations straight away, it may make more sense for your organisation to increase donation amounts gradually.

It's a good idea to ensure you have a strategic fundraising plan that looks not only at the current amounts raised and the methods used to do this, but also the percentage returned to your organisation from HMRC. In addition to this, you need to know how many donors you have currently, and how many you plan to have in the future.

After this, you need to plan how you will achieve the goals of increasing GASDS donations over one or more years. Of course, once all of this planning is done, you will need the right tools to monitor all of your donors and campaigns, and analyse how these aspects of your plan are working. It is at this stage that many organisations simply neglect to track their efforts, simply because there is so much going on and there are so many elements to keep track of.

A fundraising CRM is a powerful tool used by many of today's charities for managing all aspects of their organisation, from tracking subscriber contact preferences and sending automated campaign emails to monitoring advertising channels and event successes. As such, it is ideal for tracking all activities related to the GASDS.

Doing Away with Entry Fees

If your charity holds community events like strawberry suppers, afternoon teas or something similar, you can ask for a small donation in lieu of an entry fee. All of these donations should be collected in an envelope or container that’s been clearly labelled with a declaration confirming that this money will be claimed as part of the GASDS.

Raffle items and other Goods

It may be that supporters are used to donating raffle items or edible goods for events like bake sales held in the name of your cause. Instead, your charity can pay for these items, and then simply request that subscribers make a donation in the amount you spent on these goods.

Activities

Your charity can also maximise their GASDS revenue when it holds free group activities in a community building, which is any building with public access, such as a place of worship or a town hall. A group in this case is defined as those who benefit from your charity. In order to qualify for GASDS, at least ten of your event’s attendees must be beneficiaries. As well, the activity must be available to all or part of the public.

The easiest way to be eligible for GASDS in a community building is to ensure the location is not being used for other purposes, such as for commercial or residential purposes, as doing so will complicate the process.

With the power of a professional CRM, all sizes of donations to your organisation can be easily and efficiently updated, tracked and monitored.