Linda Cohen, founder of Lily Pad PR and campaign manager for the geared for giving campaign, passionately argues the case urging employers to try it Does passive resistance stand in the way of payroll giving?
P ayroll giving, workplace giving, give as you earn – for the uninitiated it’s a government scheme which allows employees to give to the charity of their choice, directly from their pay, and see the donation topped up with the tax that they have paid. (It’s the only way that higher rate tax payers can pass on the full amount of their tax.) Over the course of its thirty-year history, the scheme has raised over £2 billion for UK charities and yet it remains an enigma, a niche spectator sport for journalists on the charity sector press. Most recently there was a new round of baiting as payroll giving was accused of being ‘too 1980s’ and yet again of having failed to fulfil its potential. If you look at the top line statistics, it’s true they don’t make terribly impressive reading, with giving through payroll giving flat lining in 2016. But if you dig a bit deeper you start to see why the scheme has been unable to flourish. Only 3.5 % of employees in the UK have access to the scheme, which means that millions of employees just don’t have the opportunity to give from their pay. Despite the fact that the professional fundraising organisations with a dedicated payroll giving offering work tirelessly to promote the scheme, making the breakthrough has proved out of reach. Even the relaunch of the geared for giving campaign (www.gearedforgiving. org) – which saw the biggest exponents of payroll giving including BT, ASOS and The Entertainer join forces to encourage other employers to implement the scheme – has
so far had limited success. What’s the sticking point? The
that payroll giving complements and enhances what they can achieve for their charity of the year activity or their own foundation. It’s not ‘instead of’ but ‘as well as’ volunteering. It offers a welcome route to give for those who don’t want to show off their star-baker skills or launch out of a plane, but just want to get around to donating to the charity that matters to them, in a tax effective way and to know that the money will go straight to their chosen cause. It would be easy to list all the things that are wrong with payroll giving but there’s an awful lot that’s right. Despite austerity measures and an increase in the cost of living, the UK’s capacity to give remains undimmed. It’s time that business leaders stepped up to mark and did the maths and realised that if they set up a payroll giving scheme they could at least help their employees turn every £1 they give into £1.25. Why not say ‘yes’ and try it – it just might work. National Payroll Excellence Awards Now in their eleventh year, the National Payroll Excellence Awards showcase excellence, achievement and dedication and celebrate the successes in payroll giving over the past twelve months. The Awards are open to all organisations with a bronze, silver, gold, platinum or new diamond payroll giving quality mark to enter. The winners will be announced at a ceremony at Clothworkers Hall, London on November 22, 2017 (www. payrollgivingawards.co.uk). ❏
government scheme is free and easy to put in place, requiring a tiny amount of time from the payroll or human resources team; payroll giving agencies provide the conduit to handle and distribute funds to the charities; it’s tax effective; employees can give to whichever charity they choose, down to the smallest local charity, and it is seen by employees as a benefit, a way of their employer supporting them with their charitable giving. (It’s worth noting that many of the donors using payroll giving do not give in any other way.) Vitally for charities there’s no admin burden to reclaim the tax element and it provides a pipeline of giving which allows them to respond to emergencies and commit to long-term projects. The clue lies with the companies that have astonishing success with payroll giving, in some cases with as many as fifty per cent of staff giving through the scheme. Scratch the surface and you’ll start to see a common theme – business owners or chief executive officers championing payroll giving and leading from the front, empowering management to ensure the scheme is effectively promoted and communicated to staff and often using a match-funding pot tactically to drive uptake. Every year the National Payroll Giving Excellence Awards receives inspirational entries from organisations which recognise that payroll giving is an important part of their charitable giving mix. They don’t throw up the usual arguments as to why they ‘Don’t need a scheme’. They understand
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | November 2017 | Issue 35 38
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