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
Multichannel fundraising

Digital Fundraising

Alongside traditional channels, digital fundraising techniques should form a key part of any fundraising strategy. Below we list some online fundraising channels you can use.

Website

Your website is a window into your organisation – setting out what you do, how you do it and the impact you achieve.

Always consider what the primary purpose of your website is. For example, is it to raise funds or awareness? Your web content and language should reflect this. 

For many charities, their website is a vital tool in securing online donations.

If your charity doesn’t already have a built-in online donation portal on your charity’s website, there are many free tools available, including CAF Donate. 

Your charity’s website should allow donors to make one-off donations and provide the options to set up regular payments through Direct Debits, with a clear donate button visible on your webpage.

BOOST WEB DONATIONS

Get tips on how to boost donations through your charity's website

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding refers to the practice of using the internet to solicit funds for goods or a service that may or may not yet exist, with the understanding being the donor is funding its development.

This has a lot in common with traditional charity sponsorship, but the key difference is that the organisation raising money must set a target amount of funds it wants to achieve to deliver its project. In some cases, if the target is not met all the funds pledged are returned. 

Charities should be aware that crowdfunding is culturally much more oriented towards individual projects such as repairing a building or delivering someone’s last wish, than it is for funding core costs.

The rules for crowdfunding vary from platform to platform, with each having its own pricing.

Social Media

Social media is an effective free resource, which if used strategically, can help you to reach your target audiences to achieve your fundraising campaign objectives.

As social media requires time, energy and investment to deliver, take into account, which platform would help you reach your desired audience and best achieve your campaign objectives.

Get the most from social media

Get tips on how to fundraise through social media

The Flying Seagull Project is a small charitable arts and theatre troupe that travels the world making sick and disadvantaged kids laugh. Over the last three years it’s been working hard to strengthen its supporter base. 

The charity shares short videos, photos and stories of their work in action. They invested just under £100 in boosting posts, which resulted in the number of Facebook shares and likes increasing by more than 400%.

This has translated into higher levels of giving on social media. 

A recent Facebook campaign reached more than half a million people.

It was shared, clicked and liked more than 1,900 times and over 1,000 people made gifts, a number of which were high-level – offering the potential for the charity to grow the number of major donors that supports its work.

The initial target was £10,000. However at end of the 10-day fundraising period a total of £31,000 had been raised.

Online gaming

CAF’s Gaming and Charity survey found that 17% of gamers had donated while playing, while over half (58%) said they would be interested in this form of giving. Some charities and developers have already created opportunities to raise awareness and funds – for example, in 2013 the Red Cross partnered with EA to create a download for Sim City.

Humble Bundle is an online game store that works in partnership with PayPal Giving Fund to give gamers the opportunity to donate through its site. Many small to medium-sized UK charities already feature on the site – all you need to do is register for PayPal Giving Fund and your charity will feature on Humble Bundle.

Download our giving through gaming infographic

Email

Email can be a very effective way to communicate with supporters. However, most people have a very crowded inbox and so you need to work hard to make sure your email is noticed and read.

Tools such as MailChimp, Constant Contact and Salesforce allow you to track your emails, such as who has opened them, how long they have looked at them for, and which links they clicked on.

This can help you establish who is engaging with you and what content is the most (and least) popular.

They also offer data protection tools, which help prevent against spamming and can ensure you meet all the required rules and regulations.

email fundraising
Write winning charity emails with our top tips