Boris Johnson urges JustGiving to ‘reflect’ on £308k fee they pocketed from Colonel Tom Moore’s NHS walk – The Sun
BORIS Johnson urged JustGiving to “reflect” on the £308,000 fee they pocketed from Colonel Tom Moore’s heroic NHS walk.
The PM’s spokesman said the public, businesses and organisations have made “extraordinary gestures” during the coronavirus crisis, and urged the website to rethink its fee.
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Yesterday The Sun revealed that the charity fundraising page – owned by US corporation Blackbaud – had taken over £300,000 in fee processing gift-aid payments.
After the story, the PM’s spokesman said: “Thanks to the heroic effort of Col Tom Moore an incredible amount of money has been raised for hardworking NHS staff.
"The public, businesses and organisations have made extraordinary gestures towards our fantastic NHS and the voluntary sector.
“I’m sure JustGiving will want to do the same, where they possibly can. I'm sure Justgiving will be reflecting on The Sun's story today. I'm sure JustGiving will be reflecting on The Sun's story today."
Tory Grandee Iain Duncan-Smith also urged the company to hand the money back after they slapped on the five per cent fee on gift aid donations to war veteran's overall £39million for NHS staff fighting coronavirus.
Former Tory leader Mr Duncan-Smith told The Sun: “I understand that whilst there are always legitimate costs in any operation, given this is such peculiar public fund raising exercise by this remarkable man, Colonel Tom, I think Just Giving should now make a generous offer of donating the money that they have earned into the fund.
“This will be fully appreciated and would be the right thing to do.”
JustGiving said it had made a £100,000 donation to the campaign – the largest it had ever made.
A spokesperson for JustGiving said: “We have all been inspired by Colonel Tom and we are very proud to have donated £100,000 directly to NHS Charities Together. This is the largest donation in our history.
“Claiming Gift Aid back at scale is a complex procedure, which JustGiving makes simple for those charities which choose to use our service. By helping organisations like NHS Charities Together raise more cash while substantially cutting their administration costs, we ensure millions more reaches good causes than was previously possible.”
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The NHS Charities Together also backed the fundraising site, adding: “JustGiving and Virgin Money Giving have been instrumental in helping us raise more than £100m for NHS Charities Together, going above and beyond to help us maximise the amount going to support NHS staff, volunteers and patients.”
And the Institute of Fundraising backed the site and said: "Everyone wants charities to benefit as much as possible from the generosity of the British public, as well as from Gift Aid.
"But fundraising costs money, whether it’s publicising your cause, facilitating donations, administrating Gift Aid, paying staff to support volunteers or using an online partner like JustGiving.
"Without the technology and innovation that JustGiving have brought to fundraising, the efforts of Tom Moore and millions of others would not have been nearly as successful as they have been.
"The costs associated with raising money and administering Gift Aid in this way are far outweighed by the overall value to the thousands of charities who choose to partner with Just Giving to help them raise funds.
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