CAF Donate aims to help the 91% of UK charities that don't accept direct debit payments

A new means of allowing charities to raise cash has been announced by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).

CAF Donate is a new platform that will help free up small and medium size charities from the administrative burden of processing donations on and offline and make it easy for them to accept regular donations by direct debit, as well as one-off gifts.

Previous research by the Payments Council has shown that a staggering 91% of charities in the UK still do not accept direct debit payments.

Too often charities are put off setting up online giving because of the perceived cost, both in terms of processing fees and administrative costs

CAF Donate has been launched to help charities accept direct debits on and offline and broaden the range of donation methods that are available for them.

Unlike other platforms that process direct debits, there is no set up fee or regular monthly charge for charities choosing to use CAF Donate. Instead there is a small charge with every transaction.

With the continual growth in online giving, CAF Donate allows charities to take advantage of this trend by providing a facility to accept online donations and reporting of all transactions, taken online and through other fundraising channels.

Charities will have the option of a basic CAF Donate profile or the full service.

The basic profile provides those charities without their own website with an online page to help with their fundraising efforts, while the full service gives charities the tools to fundraise through their own website and via mobile phones and Facebook.

It also offers charities a widget to allow supporters to donate to them without leaving the charity’s website.

Charities can also process one-off donations and regular gifts that they receive via post and phone – giving them a single place to manage all their donations.

The full service automatically includes Gift Aid reclamation to make every donation go further.

Chris Allwood, senior product developer at CAF, said: “We are very excited to be launching CAF Donate, which we believe will be an invaluable tool for smaller charities.

“Too often charities are put off setting up online giving because of the perceived cost, both in terms of processing fees and administrative costs.

“We’ve set up CAF Donate to make it easier for these charities to accept donations and fundraise.

“A number of charities have already adopted the platform and we hope that CAF Donate will help boost small charities’ income by making it even easier for their donors to give to them.”