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Charity shop Gift Aid awareness move

By Emma Rigby, Third Sector Online, 3 September 2007

Sue Ryder Care is launching an awareness campaign explaining to charity shop donors how they can add Gift Aid to cash raised from the sale of their donated goods.

Sue Ryder Care has secured £600,000 in Gift Aid from charitable donations of clothes and bric-a-brac since November 2006, but its Sign on the Line campaign aims to boost this amount to £1m by November. If it succeeds, it will have hit its original target four years early.

The shop poster campaign and local radio advertising urges donors to fill in Gift Aid declaration forms when they donate goods to charity shops. Shops will also distribute leaflets with tear-off donor declaration forms, designed to convert shoppers into givers.

“We think it will encourage people to have a clear-out for charity,” said Julie Beames, business development manager at Sue Ryder Care. “By signing the declaration form, people get to know the value of the money raised from their donations and see that they can add 28 per cent on top from the taxman.”

A spokesman for HM Revenue & Customs said: “Gift Aid is possible only on gifts of money. This requires the charity to get back in touch with the donor and ask whether or not they would like to Gift Aid the proceeds of the item it has sold on their behalf.

“A donor must have paid enough tax to cover the amount of the Gift Aid reclaim, so the charity must approach them to check this. You never know – the donor may have inadvertently gifted the shop an antique that was far more valuable than they expected.”