Welcome to the Charities Aid Foundation

We help donors to give more impactfully and charities to build their resilience so they can do more of their life-changing work.

Personal giving From one-off donations to long-term giving, or designing your personal philanthropic strategy, we work together to help you realise your giving ambitions. Corporate giving You have the vision for making a difference. So do we. We help you plan how to give based on your goals. Services for charities Helping your charity or social enterprise become more resilient. Insights Discover the latest insights for donors and charitable organisations to help create a greater impact About us We are a leading charity, working at the centre of the giving world. We help donors to give more impactfully and charities to build their resilience so they can do more of their life-changing work. Donate  
 
 
 

Personal giving

From one-off donations to long-term giving, or designing your personal philanthropic strategy, we work together to help you realise your giving ambitions.

DISCOVER OUR PERSONAL GIVING SOLUTIONS

Corporate giving

You have the vision for making a difference. So do we. We help you plan how to give based on your goals.

DISCOVER OUR CORPORATE GIVING SOLUTIONS

Services for charities

Helping your charity or social enterprise become more resilient.

DISCOVER HOW WE SUPPORT CHARITIES

Insights

Discover the latest insights for donors and charitable organisations to help create a greater impact

Explore

About us

We are a leading charity, working at the centre of the giving world. We help donors to give more impactfully and charities to build their resilience so they can do more of their life-changing work.

Find out more about CAF
Step by step guide

Credit and Debit Card Donations

Follow our step by step guide below to process one-off donations made by credit or debit card with CAF Donate.

How to process credit and debit card donations 

1 - Get started

Log into your CAF Donate account on the CAF website and select ‘Process single credit and debit card donations’ on the right hand side of the account homepage. 

Screenshot of CAF Donate account area

2 - Choose your campaign

Choose which campaign you would like to add your donation to – your Main Campaign will appear first followed by an alphabetical list of all your active campaigns.  

3 - Enter the donation amount 

The minimum donation amount you can enter is £5, and the maximum is £9,999.

Donations are in pound sterling but if your donor is overseas their card will be debited with the local currency equivalent. 

4 - Gift Aid 

Is the donation eligible for Gift Aid? If you are taking a donation over the telephone please ensure you read this statement to the donor and make sure they understand.

5 - If the donation is tax effective...

Confirm that you either hold a valid Gift Aid Declaration or if taken over the phone that you have sent confirmation in writing of their verbal declaration. 

Screenshot of CAF Donate account area

Adding your donor's details 

The next step to complete processing your payment is to enter your donor's personal details.

1 - Unique reference number 

Do you have a unique reference number for your donor? You can enter or create a unique reference number here – we will show the reference in your reports and you can use it to search for that donor at a later date.

2 - Personal details  

Enter your donor's title, first and last names.

3 - Contact preferences 

To comply with the GDPR regulations, capture your donor’s preferred methods of being contacted. 

4 - Address details

This must be their home address and will be used for claiming any eligible Gift Aid. We may also use this address if we need to contact the donor with any queries about their donation.

5 - Thank you email

You can select this option if you'd like to send your donors an automated 'thank you' email. You can edit the content of this email under the 'campaigns and donation pages' section of your homepage. 

Screenshot of CAF Donate account area

Payment details 

Complete all the mandatory fields of the payment section.

To allow for Gift Aid processing, please ensure that the 'Card Holder Name' states the donor's first name, (or initials), as well as the last name.

Once you've submitted this, the donation processing would be complete.

Screenshot of CAF Donate account area
credit card

Remember

The security code is the last three digits of the number found on the reverse of the card, except American Express cards where the 4 digit security code appears on the front of the card.

Thank you

This will contain the unique transaction reference that you should use to quote to us in the event of a query.

If you've ticked the email confirmation box, a thank you email, including the unique transaction reference, will be sent to the donor.

The donation will appear in your reports the following day and will show the reference ‘Self Service web’ so you can easily distinguish them from donations entered online by your donors.

Screenshot of CAF Donate account area

In cases of refunds

If you enter a donation in error you'll need to contact us with the transaction reference number, donor name and amount for us to process a refund.

You can call us on 03000 123 000 or email cafdonate@cafonline.org.

Note

We can only refund the whole donation amount and not partial refunds.

More CAF Donate user guides

Process Voucher and CharityCard donations

With CAF Donate you can upload your Charity Vouchers and CharityCard donations quickly and get money into your account within 2 working days.

Make processing easier

Receive donations online

Learn how to add your donation form to your website, as well as a clear 'donate' button, to boost those online donations.

 Set up your donation form

Get more regular donations

Find out how to process and amend single and multiple offline Direct Debit donations with our step by step guides.

Get started