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Part 3 of 7 · Gift Aid claimer series ~5 min read

Routing a donation: Gift Aid, small donations, or neither

Every donation is worth twenty-five per cent more or it is not, and the difference is decided by facts that were all true on the day it arrived. Routing is the step that asks the question while the answer is still knowable.

Key takeaways

  • Match on the donation date against the coverage window, not on donor status.
  • Cash in a bucket has no donor and may still be claimable another way.
  • Over thirty pounds and no declaration is worth nothing. Count it anyway.
  • Record the reason on every unclaimable donation.
  • The unclaimable list, ranked by value, is next year’s fundraising plan.

One donation, three possible answers

A donation routed into Gift Aid, small donations, or neitherA vertical chain inside an AWS account container, entered from a box on the left labelled A donation with amount, date and method. Match a donor tries by reference or not at all. Was it covered checks for a coverage window open on this date, with a side exit reading yes: Gift Aid, claim twenty-five per cent on this donation. Small and in cash checks for thirty pounds or less in cash or contactless, with a side exit reading yes: Small donations, no declaration needed. Neither records the reason and the value. A note says the last box is not a failure branch but the output that tells a charity which donors to ask, ranked by what the answer would be worth.AWS ACCOUNTA donationamount, date,methodMatch a donorby reference, ornot at allWas it covered?a window open onthis dateGift Aidclaim 25% onthis donationyesSmall and in cash?30 pounds or less,cash or contactlessSmall donationsno declarationneededyesNeitherrecord the reason,and the valueThe last box is not a failure branch. It is the output that tells a charity which donors to ask, and it is ranked by what the answer would be worth.
Fig 1. Four steps and two ways out early. A donation leaves this chain labelled, and the label is what the claim is built from.
  • Machine learning
  • Management
  • Analytics
  • People

Matching a donor is the boring hard part

A bank transfer carries a reference the donor typed. A card payment carries whatever the gateway passed through. A standing order carries the same reference for eleven years and then changes when the donor’s bank migrates. None of this is difficult; it is just work, and it is where a routing system earns its keep or quietly does not.

Where a match is uncertain the donation goes to a human rather than to a scheme. A wrongly matched donation claimed against somebody else’s declaration is the exact shape of error that turns into a repayment, and the cost of asking is one line on a list.

Where the money actually went

Gift Aid claimed, small donations claimed, and Gift Aid unclaimedThree vertical bars. Gift Aid at thirty-five thousand seven hundred pounds. Small donations at one thousand nine hundred and seventy-five pounds. Unclaimed at eight thousand nine hundred and twenty-five pounds. A note says the third bar is a fifth of the first, and it is the only one of the three that can be changed by a phone call.GBP 0GBP 20000GBP 40000GBP 60000GBP 80000~GBP 35700Gift Aid~GBP 1975Small donations~GBP 8925UnclaimedValue of the tax reclaimThe third bar is a fifth of the first. It is also the only one of the three that can be changed by a phone call.
Fig 2. The same year in money rather than in counts. Nothing about the third bar is a tax decision.

Why count what you cannot claim

Because the number is actionable and nothing else in the finance pack is. A charity that knows it lost eight thousand nine hundred and twenty-five pounds to missing declarations, and can see which fifty donors account for most of it, has a task with a value attached. A charity that only knows what it claimed has a number to feel good about.

It also changes the design of the donation form, which is usually where the problem starts. Most of the unclaimable pile in the worked example came through a single route that never asked the question, and that is a five-minute fix that nobody makes until somebody counts.

The reason field

Every unclaimable donation carries a reason: no declaration, declaration started later, donor cancelled, donor not a UK taxpayer, over the small-donation limit, or no donor identified. Six values, and they lead to completely different actions.

A pile of donations marked declaration started later is worth a letter asking whether the donor is willing to sign a form covering the previous four years. A pile marked donor not a UK taxpayer is worth nothing and should never be asked again. Collapsing both into not claimable loses the difference.

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