Parliamentary review highlights cutting edge solution to charity cash crisis

In an increasingly cashless society, churches and charities have noticed their cash donations falling significantly in recent years. In a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport parliamentary review released this week, the government asked Wolverhampton based company Data Developments to explain how their cutting-edge software and technology breaks new ground to enable churches and charities to reverse this loss in cash donations.

Data Developments unique and world first solution not only enables churches and charities to accept donations from donors who don’t carry cash but maximises the benefit even further by utilising their Gift Aid or Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) allowance so gaining an additional 25p per £1 donation. In a recent Institute of Fundraising survey, it found 70% of charities have seen a fall in cash donations over the last three years, and 86% predict further falls in the next five years, so the need for this innovative solution is clear to see.

Imagine going to a restaurant and having to pay by cash, or having to keep a selection of coins for car parking. It’s almost unthinkable. Just a few years ago, this was normal. Now imagine that you visit a church or charity, but they are only able to accept cash donations. People still want to donate to churches and charities, but this inability for them to accept anything other than cash donations from visitors has caused them to lose £1,000’s each per year, at a time when their services are most in need.

In 2015 when designing their new online donations platform (www.mygiving.online) Data Developments wanted to include new and innovative ways to enable people to donate easily in an increasingly digital world, and they achieved a world first with contactless donations  As Stephen Hendy, Managing Director at Data Developments said “It became clear very quickly that in addition to enabling churches and charities to accept donations via websites, mobile apps and Direct Debits helping them tackle the decline in cash donations was going to be critical”.

Contactless donations are the best way to solve the failing cash issue and when in April 2017 the government announced that contactless donations could be included in a charities GASDS allowance which means that for every £1 contactless donation they would receive an additional 25p (up to a donation limit of £8000 per year) the solution presented itself.

Data Developments started working with Payter, to integrate their donations contactless terminal into MyGiving.Online. The result of this cutting-edge collaboration is that a donor can tap their card against the terminal to donate and this is reported in MyGiving.Online as a donation for GASDS or, with the donor’s permission, can be treated for Gift Aid.

It was Winston Churchill who once said that “we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give”. A recent Barclays survey stated that 85% of people have donated to charities in the past year, so the public’s support for charities is still very strong.

Data Developments are a Wolverhampton based software company who has been writing software specifically for churches and charities since 1985. The company started with a request from a local vicar wanting a membership system for their brand new Amstrad PCW. From these early beginnings, Data Developments now supports over 8,500 churches and charities across UK and Ireland.

For more information on Data Developments software solution, the website is www.datadevelopments.co.uk

For more information on the Parliamentary review, the link is http://www.theparliamentaryreview.co.uk/organisations/data-developments-uk-ltd

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