Gift Aid: Maximise your donation
Gift Aid lets you add an extra 25p to each £1 of your donation at no cost to you! Find out everything you need to know about Gift Aid on this page, including how to let us know you’re eligible.
On this page:
Gift Aid FAQs
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If you are a UK taxpayer making a personal donation, we may be able to reclaim 25p for every £1 you donate from the government at no extra cost to you. This means your donation will have 25% more of an impact without it costing you a penny more. So, if you donate £10, it could be worth £12.50 to us! Every year around £560m of Gift Aid goes unclaimed in the UK. You can find more information about Gift Aid on the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) website here.
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When you complete a Gift Aid declaration, we can claim Gift Aid on any eligible donations you have made in the past four years or make in the future, unless you ask us not to. This means your donation has 25% more impact without it costing you a penny more. With your support, we can move further, faster towards a world where everyone affected by a brain tumour lives a longer, better life. In the 2023/24 tax year we received an amazing £920,000 in Gift Aid!
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All we need from you is a single Gift Aid declaration, which will cover your future donations and donations you have made for the past four years. To make your declaration, you can either:
- Complete our online Gift Aid form here
- Download a Gift Aid form here, complete it and post it to us at the Charity address or email it to us at donations@thebraintumourcharity.org
- Call our Supporter Care Team on 01252 237792 to complete a verbal Gift Aid declaration over the phone
- Tick the Gift Aid box when donating online
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You are a taxpayer if any of the following apply to you:
- You receive a wage or salary
- You have taxable savings
- You have a private pension
- You have paid capital gains on the sale of property or shares
Please note that you need to pay more Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax for that tax year than the amount of Gift Aid claimed on all your donations (which is 25% of the value of your total charitable gifts).
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Gift Aid is a government scheme for personal, voluntary donations made by eligible UK taxpayers from their own money. This means that HMRC does not allow charities to claim Gift Aid on the following types of donations:
- Donations from a non-UK taxpayer
- Donations made on behalf of a company, organisation or trust
- Donations made on behalf of someone else
- Donations made in return for goods, rights or services
- Donations made to purchase a ticket at a fundraising event
- Donations made via the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) or payroll giving
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If you are a higher rate taxpayer, you can also claim the difference between the basic rate of tax (20%) and your highest rate (40%). For example, if you donate £100 with Gift Aid, this is worth £125 to the Charity as a gross donation – but as you can reclaim 20% of this, your donation will only cost you £75.
You can reclaim the money through your self-assessment tax return; just visit HMRC for the relevant form.
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You may be eligible if you pay Income Tax on a private pension or savings account, or pay Capital Gains Tax on the sale of property or shares.
You must have paid enough tax during the year to cover the value of Gift Aid on your donations (which is 25% of the amount of your total charitable gifts).
If you only receive the basic State Pension, then you will not pay any Income Tax and will not be eligible for Gift Aid.
If you are unsure, we’d recommend checking with your pension provider or checking on the HMRC website here before completing a declaration.
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We will keep hold of Gift Aid declarations on our secure database, so you do not need to complete a new one each time. If your donation is eligible for Gift Aid (i.e. it is a personal donation) and we have a Gift Aid declaration for you on our database, we will automatically apply Gift Aid unless requested not to.
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If you are no longer a UK taxpayer (as defined above) or your circumstances have changed, please let us know as soon as possible. You can do this by emailing donations@thebraintumourcharity.org or calling us on 01252 237792. Please let us know if:
- You want to cancel your Gift Aid declaration
- You’ve changed your name or home address
- You no longer pay sufficient tax on your income and/or capital gains
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We can claim Gift Aid on voluntary donations if you ask eligible donors at your event to fill out our sponsorship form. They will need to add their full name, address and the amount they donated to the form so that we can Gift Aid their donation.
Once you’ve completed the form, please post it to the Charity’s address or scan and email it to donations@thebraintumourcharity.org.
If you’ve held a collection and haven’t recorded this information, we won’t be able to claim Gift Aid.
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If you’ve asked people to buy a ticket to an event, we can’t claim Gift Aid as something has been received in exchange for the donation.
However, you can take advantage of Gift Aid by asking for voluntary donations instead of setting a ticket price, or by collecting extra donations before, during or after the event:
- Voluntary donations: Rather than selling tickets, you could make the event free to attend and suggest a voluntary donation instead.
- Extra donations: You could sell a ticket to your event (which we can’t claim Gift Aid on) and also collect extra, voluntary contributions on top of the ticket/entry price. For example, instead of selling a ticket for £50, you could charge £30 for the ticket and suggest a voluntary donation of an extra £20. The voluntary donation of £20 is then eligible for Gift Aid.*
- Keep it going: Consider setting up an online fundraising page on a platform like JustGiving so that people can donate before or after the event, or if they can’t attend but still want to support you.
*Please note that the suggested voluntary donation can’t be compulsory and that only the ticket price must be required to attend the event. We’d recommend making this clear on the ticket or when advertising the event to stay Gift Aid compliant.
Make sure that any voluntary donations you collect have a valid Gift Aid declaration from the donor. You can use our sponsorship form to collect their full name, address and the amount they donated so we can Gift Aid their donation. Make sure that your donors tick the Gift Aid box if they’re eligible!Once you’ve completed the form, please post it to the Charity’s address or scan and email it to donations@thebraintumourcharity.org.
- Voluntary donations: Rather than selling tickets, you could make the event free to attend and suggest a voluntary donation instead.
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Similarly to ticket sales, Gift Aid can only be claimed when no reward is received in return for making the donation.
If you fundraise by selling cakes or raffle tickets at a fixed price, for example, the money raised from these activities cannot be claimed for Gift Aid. However, if you ask for voluntary donations instead of setting a fixed price, these will be eligible for Gift Aid.
For example, if you are selling raffle tickets for £5 and someone donates an additional £2, we can claim Gift Aid on this additional £2 donation.
Make sure that any voluntary donations you collect have a valid Gift Aid Declaration from the donor. You can use our sponsorship form to collect their full name, address and the amount they donated so we can Gift Aid their donation. Make sure that your donors tick the Gift Aid box if they’re eligible!
You could also set up an online fundraising page to collect voluntary donations.
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If you have set up a page on an online fundraising platform such as JustGiving, people donating to your page will have the opportunity to complete a Gift Aid declaration, meaning that we can claim Gift Aid on those donations.
If you’re collecting donations offline (cash or cheques), you can download our sponsorship form and ask your sponsors to fill in their details. Make sure that your sponsors tick the Gift Aid box if they’re eligible!
If you have any questions about Gift Aid, you can contact our Supporter Care Team by emailing donations@thebraintumourcharity.org or calling us on 01252 237792.
Gift Aid declaration
Download a Gift Aid declaration form
Gift Aid Certificate – DOCX
If you are a UK Tax Payer, please use this form to let us know so we can claim Gift Aid tax relief of 25p on every pound you give at no extra cost to you.
Gift Aid Certificate for multiple donations – DOCX
If you have held an event and asked people for voluntary donations, or they have given a donation on top of an event ticket/entry price, you can use this form to collect their details so we can Gift Aid their donation.