REWARD
Payroll giving week
Mervi Slade, product and programmemanager – payroll giving at Cancer Research UK discusses all things payroll givingweek related ahead of the event
T he second payroll giving week will take place from 7-13 February 2022. The week has been designed to raise the profile and awareness of payroll giving. Holding it in the week leading up to Valentine’s Day is no coincidence. This much-loved form of giving has been given its very own moment to shine in the calendar. Payroll giving week is a campaign assembled by a cross sector group of charities, payroll giving agencies, professional fundraising organisations (organisations that specialise in promoting payroll giving in the workplace), the CIPP and the Chartered Institute of Fundraising. They have been working hard to make this week special and help more employers actively talk about their own payroll giving schemes. This could either be to their own employees or their social media platforms, to encourage other employers to introduce this great scheme. During payroll giving week, we want to see plenty of noise about the scheme on social media, promotions in workplaces across the country and conversations about implementing the scheme if an organisation does not currently have it in place. You might thank your employees for their contributions to numerous causes, or post what payroll giving means to you as an employer, how it fits with other benefits offered and how it adds to your corporate social responsibility programme. If you already have a payroll giving scheme in place, why not promote it to your employees during this week? Maybe add some employer matching to make the scheme an even better offering. There is more information available
on the dedicated website: http://ow.ly/ c3V730s6U6U. Anyone can use this. There are hashtags as well: #payrollgivingweek and #lovepayrollgiving. I would encourage everyone to use them when posting about the scheme during the week. Next time you are making payroll giving deductions, remember this, and don’t think of it as a mundane task: at the end of the day, you are helping to save the world Thank you, payroll professionals As a payroll professional, it might seem that making payroll giving deductions from salaries is just one of the many tasks you’ve been given. From the charities’ perspective, this work you do is vital: you are saving animals, furthering medical research, helping in emergencies and putting food on the tables of the poorest people across the world. Children have access to education thanks to the work you’re doing. Throughout the history of payroll giving, over £2 billion has been donated to charities of all sizes and causes through the scheme. This would not have been possible without
the thousands of payroll professionals who make it happen every pay day. Next time you are making payroll giving deductions, remember this, and don’t think of it as a mundane task: at the end of the day, you are helping to save the world. Payroll giving’s importance to the UK charity sector is significant. In the financial year 2020/21, it raised over £143 million for thousands of charities, from small local organisations to household names. Thanks to the regular gifts employees made through their pay, those organisations are now more able to serve those who need vital help. Never has payroll giving been more important than during the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic had a devastating impact on the charity sector. Some charities did not survive, and others saw historically reliable sources of income, such as events fundraising, disappear overnight. This has ramped up the pressure for income streams, such as payroll giving, to remain stable and enable charities to deliver the best possible services. Payroll giving’s success during Covid-19 offered a rare light of optimism and positivity during a storm where the sector faced a multi-billion-pound funding gap. In fact, figures released during the first national lockdown quarter (April-June 2020/2021) showed an uplift, and the full year’s numbers now show this trend didn’t slow down. Figures pulled together by the Association of Payroll Giving Organisations (APGO), which represents key stakeholders in the payroll giving sector, showed employee donations increased by 6%, and employer matching rose by 4% when
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | February 2022 | Issue 77 28
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