The third annual Payroll Giving Month will take place in February 2023. The aim to provide a moment for Payroll Giving in the charity calendar and to raise awareness of the scheme amongst employees, employers and charities. It is also a great time to encourage more employees to support your cause via Payroll Giving. This can be in the form of regular giving, but there is also an option of running one-off campaigns with your corporate partners.
There has not been a moment for Payroll Giving. Legacies have Remember a Charity month that is well established time in September to talk about giving through Wills. Therefore, the first Payroll Giving week was established in February 2021 and hundreds of charities got on board to talk about Payroll Giving. We are hoping for Payroll Giving Week to become a regular part of the fundraising calendar, a time in the year to really pull out all the stops to promote this form of giving. Not that it can’t be promoted at any other time as well!
Payroll Giving might be an area that you have not been focusing as a charity, and this could be a good time to give it some attention. Especially due to the Covid 19 pandemic, organisations have had to adapt their ‘new normal’ to an in-person and virtual hybrid model, so where in-person fundraising through bake sales or other activities might not be as easy to organise in the workplace, you can always run online Payroll Giving campaigns.
Payroll Giving income has stayed very stable during the pandemic and showed that this is an income stream that can really help charities through any tough times. As a matter of fact, charities saw higher average gifts during this period and overall income to the sector increased in 2020-21.
"Samaritans is there for anyone who needs us. With Payroll Giving, our supporters can be there every month too. Donating through Payroll Giving is a simple, tax-effective way to really make a difference. Last year, the income earned from Payroll Giving helped Samaritans answer 16,000 calls for help."
Sarah Weber, Individual Giving Manager, The Samaritans
"Payroll Giving provides Together For Animals with a vital regular source of income, allowing us to provide lifesaving care for animals desperately in need. As a small charity, Payroll Giving is a key source of income. Payroll Giving helps us support thousands of cats, dogs, donkeys and horses in need each year."
Caroline Gaskin, Development Manager, Together for Animals
"Across the UK, one in four people that need end of life care are not getting the support they need. With our payroll givers, we are able to work towards ensuring that end of life care is there for everyone that needs it. Our payroll givers collectively make up nearly 10% of our fundraised income. We love our payroll givers as they enable us to continue supporting over 200 hospices across the UK as they care for over 300,000 people and their families every year.
Amy Foster, Senior Supporter Engagement Executive, Hospice UK
Click here to download Graphics for Payroll Giving Month
Internally
Payroll Giving Month is a great time to have more conversations about Payroll Giving, whether that is internally or with corporate partners.
If your charity does not yet have Payroll Giving scheme in place for your own staff, why not introduce it now and plan your internal campaign. This will then give you confidence to speak to your corporate partners about your first-hand experience in setting up the scheme.
If you have Payroll Giving already available for your own staff, why not promote it and make this a fun employee engagement event. You might be able to enhance your campaign by asking for small prizes from corporate partners or local businesses. You might also throw in extra half a day or a whole day holiday as a prize if your HR team are supportive.
Remember to keep the option open for employees in your charity to support any charity of their choice: we all have our own interests and just because you work for one cause does not mean that you would not be interested in supporting other causes as well.
Payroll Giving Month was created with social media in mind as this is a very cost-effective way to get involved. Tweet about Payroll Giving, have content on LinkedIn and if you can, maybe take over part of your home page for the month.
You might wish to thank existing Payroll Giving supporters and, depending on their given consent, you might want to call them or send them a little note.
Maybe you could also thank your corporate partners if they are proactively promoting Payroll Giving? Tweeting your thanks will give them positive exposure and shows your appreciation.
Corporate partners
If you have not discussed the idea of Payroll Giving with your corporate partners before, you might start conversations around this form of giving leading to Payroll Giving Month.
If they do not already have a Payroll Giving scheme in place, you could help them to introduce it - and being the first charity that is mentioned in this context could give you a great opportunity to recruit regular supporters. Remember though that employees are able to support any cause they care about.
If they already have Payroll Giving scheme in place you have one less hurdle to get through (even though introducing Payroll Giving scheme is not complicated).
Why not use Payroll Giving as a great employee engagement opportunity, as well as making employees aware of all the amazing work you are doing and how your corporate partners help enables that.
Having a fun, eye catching campaign that might include a prize draw (extra day off, free lunch, coffee for the month etc) can really help engagement. If the situation allows, having someone in the workplace to make signing up as easy as possible would be very good. This could either be done by your charity staff or if corporate partner has charity champions.
Do also include online option for employees to sign up.
Having a prize draw with a deadline helps to give timeframe and urgency within which to sign up.
Talk to your corporate partner about matching! This could generate even more income and can of course be counted against any fundraising target there might be. There are various options how this can work: they might match £ per £, they might match first donation made or a percentage. Some employers match all the donations, but might double-match gifts given to their chosen charity.
If matching is not an option, they might be willing to pay for the administration fee (normally 3-4%) that some Payroll Giving Agencies take. This way 100% of the donations will go to their chosen cause.
Whether they match or pay for the administration fee, corporate partners can claim tax back via their corporation tax for these donations.
Webinar
You can find out more about Payroll Giving and Payroll Giving Month here.
This webinar, hosted by CRUK, Barnardo's and Together for Animals, provides an introduction to the scheme, its benefits and the campaign.