Just over 40 per cent of charities say that they do not claim gift aid on donations, and almost 50 per cent claim on less than half of their individual donations, suggests new research among nearly 600 charities.

For the 592 organisations in the UK and Ireland that took part in Blackbaud’s State of the Not-for-Profit Industry report, on average income from gift aid represented 4 per cent of their total income.

Daniel Fluskey, head of policy and research at the Institute of Fundraising, said this suggested that gift aid is an “area which looks like it has potential for growth – we’d really like to see the number of organisations claiming gift aid increase in the future so to maximise the value of donations”.

It is the first year that Blackbaud has asked about claiming gift aid, and was carried out ahead of the launch of Charities Online. When the survey was carried out (last summer), one quarter of respondent were unsure which method they would use for claiming gift aid online, and 7 per cent were unaware that the paper form was about to be withdrawn.

Continued growth of online and mobile

The number of charities that can take donations online grew from 70 per cent in 2012 to 86 per this year. And the number using text giving rose from one third to close to 50 per cent. For those surveyed online donations made up 15 per cent of total individual donations on average.

Use of QR codes has also risen to 25 per cent and more charities are now using mobile optimised emails.

Blackbaud admitted that because its survey comprised a "convenience sample" rather than a random sample of the entire not-for-profit community, results "may not
be statistically representative of all not-for-profits in the UK
and Ireland" but can provide a "useful basis for benchmarking and analysis".