Come back Postman Pat, all is forgiven…

Don’t get me wrong, I love technology. All those new gadgets that make life easier, keep us in touch and are generally for the good of the whole. What bugs me is where new technology actually makes things harder or more difficult or costly for people.

Take, for example, all the changes at Royal Mail. A couple of years ago they introduced new machines that could sort the mail, instead of using people. “Great!” You might think, “that’ll make life so much easier and speed up the service”. But then came the catch. No longer could you send mail in larger C4 sized envelopes without incurring higher postal fees.

For many charities, this involved re-designing newsletters and mailings, in order that they could either be folded in half or reduced to A5 size paper to fit the smaller acceptable size. Obviously, there was a cost involved for many charities, but overall they coped.

So, it’s back to normal, or so you’d think. It’s now emerged that these super-whizzo sorting machines are incapable of determining when a FREEPOST envelope has had a stamp stuck on it! As a result, not only are the charities having to pay the FREEPOST fee, the Royal Mail are also coining in the stamp fee from the donor who thought they were saving the charity money! So, double income for Royal Mail and an unecessary charge for the charities using FREEPOST.

The Royal Mail have said they will reimburse charities for the number of double-charged stamped FREEPOST envelopes they receive, although one RM office has told a hospice in Derbyshire it will only reimburse them the once. The point is, it costs time and money for charities to monitor all their FREEPOST mail and chase it up with Royal Mail. They won’t get reimbursed for this, only the postage cost per envelope.

It has led to some charities asking donors to cross out the word FREEPOST on the envelope, when using a stamp, in an effort to stop the double-charging.

I find it incredulous that when we have so much cutting edge technology at our fingertips, Royal Mail cannot get a machine designed that can properly scan envelopes for such obvious things as stamps, printed words (when it already reads hand-written postcodes) or barcodes. The sooner new independent mail delivery services begin to offer decent services to all, the better!

One charity support organisation, Company Solutions, has already called on charities to boycott the use of FREEPOST until Royal Mail get their act together. To sign up to their campaign, click here.

It really is a one way game with Royal Mail. They seem to want all the benefits, even if it results in others experiencing extra costs, just so their systems work and they cut their costs. The days of friendly Postman Pat who brought a human face to the service really do seem to be over.

Darling, you didn’t change the Corporate Gift Aid status…

One last thought (for the time being) about the recent Budget decisions on Gift Aid, that seems to get quietly ignored each year, is the failure of the Government to do anything about Corporate Gift Aid. In the past, (pre-2000), when companies gave donations to charities, the charity could claim back the tax on that gift, just as they did with individuals who made Deeds of Covenants with the charity.

All that changed with the introduction of Gift Aid in 2000. The Government scrapped the tax on company donations going to charities and instead allowed the companies to claim it back for themselves. The rationale, it appears, was that the companies would give higher donations, that after they claimed back the tax would mean it cost them less. For example, if they gave £128, they could claim back the tax, which would have been £28, so the charity got £128 and the company only forked out £100. Fine, if companies and individuals thought that way. Reality: they don’t!

So when asked why they hadn’t changed anything about corporate donations and Gift Aid, following last year’s Gift Aid consultation, it would appear the Treasury officials will only respond by saying, “It remains under review”. It’s easy to keep quiet about something you, the Government, introduced that went totally pear-shaped, isn’t it Mr Darling?

The Chancellor did giveth…but it still cost many charities!

Following on from my previous blog about the reduction in Gift Aid from 28p to 25p for every £1 donated, the Chancellor, Alistair Darling (don’t you love that name?) made a surprise move in his recent Budget. The rate of Gift Aid, which was based on income tax at a rate of 22p in the £1, is not going to change for charities for the next three financial years, as a way to lessen the blow to income when the tax rate falls to 20p in the £1.

He also announced some tweaking of the system to make it easier for charities to collect and claim their Gift Aid. However, he failed to go along with the majority opinion, which was to change radically the way that Gift Aid is calculated, from the current system based on individuals having to declare they want the charities to claim the Gift Aid, to a system where it is given by the HMRC based on the proportion of a charity’s donors who are tax payers. This would have greatly reduced the time and money it costs charities to administrate Gift Aid. Still, I suppose we mustn’t grumble!

The thing that has really annoyed so many charities, is that there was no warning that he was going to keep Gift Aid at the same level for another 3 years. As a result, hundreds of charities have been getting all their donation literature re-printed, at considerable cost to some organisations, in line with the lower Gift Aid rate we were due to move to. Now they have piles of unusable literature, because the facts and figures are incorrect.

Sometimes a surprise can backfire and in this case I doubt the Chancellor will be offering to compensate the waste of time and materials his unexpected announcement has caused.

Spreading the word for nowt!

One of the ways to get your legacy message to a wider audience is through the local press and other publications. It’s the same as large national charities taking out ads in national newspapers to promote gifts in Wills. However, you are unlikely to have the funds to pay for such a luxury!

So how can you get your message across for next to nothing (or nothing)?

Firstly, you need to build good relations with your local press. Local charities meeting local needs are very newsworthy to local newspapers and their journalists. The more closely you relate to them, the more they are likely to use you, or be open to suggestions from you.

Here are 5 ways to get your legacy message across for nothing:

1. If you have some interesting stories to tell about your legacy fundraising that you think the public would like to hear about, write it up as a Press Release. For example, we recently had a legacy campaign for the hospice I work in that featured some imitation blue plaques being placed on buildings in Leeds city centre The plaques promoted the fact that it wasn’t only remarkable people who can leave a legacy. So I wrote an article about the use of the plaques and then concluded by giving my contact details if anyone wanted to know more about leaving a gift in their Will to us. The article was picked up by the Yorkshire Evening Post and received excellent coverage.
2. Talk about the people who left the legacy if there is something special or fascinating about them. Never mention how much the legacy was for, especially larger ones, as this may put people off by thinking we don’t need anymore! I will also change names if I feel it is best to do so, but keep the story real, as people can tell when you’re spinning a yarn. If a family is involved, I will always seek their approval first, to avoid any disapproval or possible conflict.
3. Be aware that there are quiet news weeks and periods when little or nothing tends to happen (i.e. between Christmas and New Year, after major Bank Holidays or during August.) You will often find journalists gagging for something to write about at these times, so provide them with potential copy about your legacy fundraising.
4. Free ads! You will notice that when a newspaper has insufficient advertising copy to fill all its space, they will place an ad saying: “You could be advertising your company here!” They do it, because it looks better to have something rather than a blank space. So why not suggest (this is where having a good, close relationship with them comes to the fore!) that they could drop in an ad for your charity when they have such a space? You will need to provide them with camera-ready artwork for the ad (usually in .pdf or .eps format), so that you make it as simple as possible for them to do this. In a high profile regional newspaper, this could be worth several hundred pounds a time, so you are getting a very good deal!
5. Look out for local freebie papers and other local magazines who might also be prepared to cover your news. People like a good story, especially if it’s good news!

If you would like help to begin to promote your charity’s need for gifts in Wills, please get in touch with me. My contact details can be found on my About page.