I’m privileged to work with thousands of charities each year, but the most common missed opportunities I see are often ones that can be easily rectified, resulting in crucial additional income. 

Here are three key areas you should be checking now for a successful 2025.

Talk about the ‘why’

Most of us are fantastic at talking about who we are, and the work we do, but are we sharing enough about why our fundraising is important?

During a recent sweep of campaign pages set up by charities on Give as you Live, I found that over 40% were missing their “why”. 
Instead of a detailed custom message which explained why the donation was so important, many charities fall into the trap of just asking for what they need. 

For example, instead of “£5 a month provides one hour of training for an assistance dog”, say: “£5 a month provides weekly training for an assistance puppy. Once fully trained, our dogs go on to help people live independently across the UK.”

You can see how the second option brings a donation to life and helps donors feel valued. It also provides a decision for your donor to make – would they like to fund the training, or is there something that excites them more when they select a different value?

Maximise your gift aid returns

In 2024, CAF reported that charities had missed out on a whopping £560m in unclaimed gift aid, due to a little over 50% of donors claiming gift aid on their giving. While the gift aid process can be particularly cumbersome, we know charities can’t afford to miss out on an additional 25% of income! 

With extensive testing and regular reviews of our donation processes for our partner charities, at Give as you Live we’ve been able to establish a gift aid rate in excess of 80% on eligible donations.

Make it straightforward for donors to gift aid their donation with simple wording. It's worth spending some time to research donate button options, because not all are created equal! I recommend looking out for a provider that has gift aid wording included, is easy to add to your website, and provides a seamless giving experience for your donors." 

Maximise your fundraiser’s efforts by ensuring there is a gift aid tick box and declaration on every form. Don’t forget to include an example – rather than 25p in every £1, round it up to a popular donation amount ie £2.50 extra in every £10. 

Despite being launched in the 1990s, many Brits still don’t fully understand gift aid – and as charity fundraisers, we get it! A simple one-liner explaining that an extra 25p in every £1 donated is available for UK taxpayers could make all the difference.

Minimise platform fees

Fees are just one of the minefields that face charity fundraisers, and while the ever-mounting platform fees and subscription fees won’t make much of a dent in the income of charities taking a lot of donations, small-to-medium-sized causes often feel the impact the most. 

Not only that, but what good is it to the charity if their staff are spending countless hours just to wrap their head around the different subscription levels and dynamic fee structures?

While researching some changes for Give as you Live last year, the breadth of terminology and scale of options available really blew my mind. As an industry, why do we expect busy fundraisers to play detective to uncover the best option for their charity?  A simple fee structure could give you peace of mind, as well as several hours back in your week.