online donations

What is a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF)?

A Donor-Advised Fund, or DAF, is a philanthropic giving vehicle hosted by a registered charity (KindLink Foundation). It allows individuals or organisations (DAF account holder) to establish a foundation account and instruct donations without having to register a charity themselves. This scheme can save cost and time while it is much more flexible and easy to manage than a regular registered nonprofit organisation.

We recently published a post about compliance when accepting online donations for charities, and although online donations are the way forward in terms of donor preferences and fund security most non-profit organisations still accept other types of donations - such as bank transfers, cheques, cash, etc. - so it is time to discuss how charities would like to or should manage their donation records.

Every year charities claim more than £1 billion back from the HMRC as part of the Gift Aid scheme. The scheme has proved to be hugely successful as an additional income stream for non-profits and is a way to give donors a clear say on what their taxes (or at least part of them) should be spent on.