CAF Donate help

As well as being a registered charity, CAF is also authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. This means that we have to check your charity status and run a few financial checks before you are able to use CAF Donate.

We do this to ensure that your donor’s information is protected and that their donations are processed safely and securely – so they can give to you with confidence, every time.

Step 2: We’ll send you an email to activate your login details. At the same time we will be in touch with a registered contact at your charity (usually by email) to make sure you are able to accept terms and conditions on behalf of your charity.

Step 3: As soon as the contact at your charity gives the green light you will get an email from us to let you know you can access your account.

Upgrading to CAF Donate

Upgrading to CAF Donate is really simple. Log in to your CAF Charity Dashboard and click on the ‘Upgrade’ button on your homepage. You need to decide whether you would like CAF to manage Gift Aid on your behalf and provide us with the names, addresses and dates of birth of your trustees.

Simply select the option to enter your charity details manually. We may need to ask you for documentation to confirm your charitable status, but we will let you know everything you need to send. 

Yes – as long as your charity is registered with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, Charity Commission for Northern Ireland or you have been granted exempt status by HMRC, you are welcome to apply. We may need to ask you for documentation to confirm your charitable status, but we will let you know everything you need to send.

No - CAF Charity Donate is only available for UK-registered charities.

As well as being a registered charity, CAF is also registered for anti-money laundering purposes.

This means that we need to take a few more steps with our due diligence process – and in the case of CAF Donate, this means asking you for the full names, addresses and dates of birth for all your trustees.

It might seem like a pain now but it does mean that you can be reassured that we are extremely scrupulous in all our interactions with you and is why CAF is trusted by charities and donors alike.

We want you to get the most from every donation – no matter how large or small. CAF Donate helps relieve the burden of admin by automatically checking which donations are eligible, submitting a claim to HMRC, reconciling the money that comes back and settling to your bank account – all without you breaking a sweat. You simply need to appoint us as a partner with HMRC by completing a CHV1 form.

Don’t worry if you still want to take care of your own Gift Aid – we’ll still give you a report of all the eligible donations for you to generate your own claims.

We’ll only make claims on the donations we process for you so you will still need to submit claims for donations made through other sources.

If you already have an account with us, for example a CAF Charity Account, you can use the same username and password for all your other CAF services.

When you log in, you’ll see a list of all of the services you hold with us, You’ll be able to select an account to manage from the list.

It’s our mission to make sure you get your donations as quickly as possible. By giving us your bank details we can make sure donations are with you and ready to use within days, rather than waiting for a cheque to clear.

Email a scanned pre-printed paying-in slip showing your sort code, account number and your organisation’s name to charityvalidation@cafonline.org. Please note that we will only pay donations into bank accounts in your official charity name.

We regret that we are unable to pay into Building Society accounts.

CAF Donate Direct Debits is a shared service for charities – this is to keep your costs down and allow charities of all sizes access to what can be a very expensive service. We are aware that the narrative ‘Charity Donation’ on donors’ bank statements can be confusing but we do send either an email or a letter to every new donor confirming their donation and explaining the narrative.

You can upload the details of CAF Vouchers and CAF CharityCards with CAF Donate. We’ll process these payments immediately, which means that your charity will receive donations more quickly than if you send them to us by post. This also saves us time and money, which we can reinvest in the charity sector.

If your donor is using the account switching service offered by banks, all their existing Direct Debits will move automatically to their new account, so you do not have to make any changes to your existing arrangement. If they are simply opening a new account and want to use that instead, you will need to cancel your existing donation and create a new one.