Payroll giving
One of the easiest and most efficient ways to donate on a regular basis is by making a donation directly from your salary. Ask your department if they are signed up to a "payroll-giving" scheme – and if they are, you can ask to have a donation taken out of your salary, before tax, every month. Vicki Pulman of the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) says that if you are a lower-rate taxpayer, the cost of donating £15 to charity would be just £12 out of your net salary – or just £9 if you're a higher-rate taxpayer.
If your employer doesn't offer a payroll-giving scheme, you may want to set up a direct debit, but make sure that the charity is claiming "gift aid" on your donation. Gift aid is simply a way of the charity claiming back the tax relief that you could have got by donating directly from your gross salary – and can be claimed on any donation, whether it is a monthly direct debit or a one-off pledge. So if you donate £100, the charity will receive an extra £28 if it claims the gift aid. Furthermore, if you're a higher-rate tax payer, you can also claim back an additional 18 per cent tax relief when you file your tax return – which means that the cost of donating the £100 will work out at just £77.
If you are setting up a direct debit, it's often better to go straight to the charity – or set up a CAF account (see legacies) – rather than signing up with one of their representatives on the street. These direct marketing companies often end up receiving the entire first year of donations for signing you up.
Making more of your donations
Payroll-giving is an extremely tax efficient way of donating to charity, for example for a donation of £12 the charity receives £15.