Be your own charitable foundation

The first step is all about planning what you want to achieve through your charitable foundation and how you want to achieve it. GivingWorks helps you to do this:

• Complete the Pre-Sign up form (which is available to download from our Resources section) to set out the objectives for your micro-trust, and email it to us via info@givingworks.org.uk. Alternatively, you can mail it to us at the address which appears in our Contact section.
• At this stage, you should consider the size of the fund you wish to create and how long you will want it to run for.
• GivingWorks will then contact you to discuss and agree to these charitable objectives with you prior to establishing your micro-trust.
• Once agreed, you will be sent a GivingWorks micro-trust agreement and Gift Aid declaration form to fill in and sign.

Setting up a GivingWorks micro-trust is very straightforward:

• Complete and sign the GivingWorks micro-trust agreement including the Gift Aid declaration form.
• Write your cheque or organise a bank transfer to the value you wish to put into your micro-trust.
• GivingWorks will claim Gift Aid at the basic rate of tax on your behalf and add it to your fund. That means for every £1,000 you put into the trust a further £250 can be added through tax relief.
• The GivingWorks charitable status umbrella allows you to claim Gift Aid even if your donations are going to overseas charities that would not normally be entitled to it.
• If you are a higher rate taxpayer you will be able to claim the difference between the basic rate of tax and your higher rate on all money placed in the micro-trust

The GivingWorks micro-trust is designed to make it easy for you to fund your chosen causes:

• In addition to your initial donation, you can choose to make “top up” donations to your micro-trust at any time.
• You can easily fundraise towards your GivingWorks micro-trust and engage your friends and family, co-workers or volunteers in aid of your GivingWorks account. Gift Aid and tax reliefs can be applied to donations making your account tax efficient.
• If you are an employee you may also be able to get your employer to match your payments into the trust. They too will receive tax relief on their contributions. There is no upper limit to the total amount that can be donated, and regular standing order payments are accepted as well as lump sum donations.
• Set up fees are paid to GivingWorks at this stage either by writing us a cheque or organising a bank transfer to us, to the value of £750, to cover our set up costs.
• Our management charges also become payable at this point. The management charge is deducted from the monies deposited into the micro-trust account. Currently, this charge stands at 7% of monies deposited and it is levied at the time the monies are deposited in your micro-trust account.
• The micro-trust can be run as a short-term project or a lifelong commitment.

GivingWorks can provide you with whatever levels of support you need to make your charitable foundation function effectively:

• In addition to providing trustees for your micro-trust, GivingWorks will help you to check the validity of any charitable cause you wish to give to from your micro-trust so that we can try to ensure that your money is spent properly and effectively.
• Our support services go much further than this, however. Whatever the issues and challenges your own cause faces, we’ve almost certainly come across them before and if we don’t know how to deal with them we’ll know someone who does. Our job is to help you make sure you achieve as much as possible with your money.
• As a good guide, the Code of Fundraising Practice is a useful resource for you to follow and keep up to date with.
• Furthermore, by working through GivingWorks you can ensure whatever level of anonymity you desire.

GivingWorks manages charity administration and charity reporting obligations on your behalf:

• As soon as your micro-trust account has been set up you will be sent fund transfer forms to allow you to start using the micro-trust to make donations to your chosen charities and causes.
• During the life of the trust, you will be kept fully up to date with comprehensive financial reporting on all donations going into and out of the trust and what balance is remaining.
• At the end of the life of the trust, GivingWorks will contact you to ask whether you would prefer to renew.