Minister threatens rip-off fundraiser JustGiving with ban on making profits from donations
MINISTERS have vowed to crack down on JustGiving pocketing thousands of pounds from charity donations raised through its website.
Treasury Minister Robert Jenrick has issued an ultimatum to four of the biggest rip-off fundraising sites to change their practices or be slapped with new laws banning them from making huge profits on charity donations.
He laid down the gauntlet to JustGiving to act swiftly by warning the crackdown would come in the Autumn Budget.
JustGiving automatically takes five per cent from all donations - on top of credit card fees.
It even slaps this five per cent commission on Gift Aid, which is the income tax charities can reclaim and helps boost charitable donations by an additional £1.3 billion a year.
Mr Jenrick, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, has commissioned HMRC to draw up plans to bar sites from charging any commission on Gift Aid.
The minister vowed to act after The Sun revealed JustGiving trousered nearly £300,000 from the terror attacks in Manchester and London Bridge last year and £200,000 from Grenfell campaigns.
He told The Sun last night: “Some of the largest fundraising platforms have been keeping all or part of the Gift Aid amount on their fee.
“This is not the intention of Gift Aid, which is to provide more money for good causes and to support charities.
“I want this practice to stop and if it doesn’t, we will take action at the next opportunity. I have instructed HMRC to prepare steps to bring this to an end if required.”
It comes after Labour MP Neil Coyle tabled amendments to the Counter Terrorism Bill that would change the law to bar JustGiving from keeping any money above admin costs for charitable fundraising campaigns.
He was disgusted after discovering that JustGiving raked in £16,700 from the £334,908 in total donations raised for victims of last year’s London Bridge terror attack.
Mr Coyle, whose Southwark constituency included the scene of the attack, said it was time to stop sites like JustGiving “profiting from terrorism”.
The fundraising site also pocketed a whopping £277,000 from the £5.5 million of donations made through its site for victims of the Manchester Arena attack.
JustGiving justifies its profit by saying it helps “people raise more money, more efficiently”.
It said it had voluntarily given £50,000 to the Manchester Arena campaigns and helped raise an extra £10,000 towards supporting workers following the closure of Borough Market in the aftermath of the attack.
A spokesman for the site said: “JustGiving is incredibly proud of the work we do day in, day out to support hundreds of thousands of good causes by tens of millions of people every year, often in the most difficult of circumstances.
“The small fee allows us to instantly enable people to give safely and securely within moments of an incident taking place, raising incredible amounts for those most in need.”
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