Gift Aid explained

How Gift Aid works

If you are a UK tax payer, you have the option to Gift Aid their donations to charity by making a declaration to the charity receiving the donation. There is no limit to the number of charities that can claim Gift Aid on your donations, but you must pay sufficient tax to cover the amount being claimed in a single tax year.

If you are making your donation using the donate facility on this website (CAF Donate – Charities Aid Foundation) you will be asked in the process if you wish to Gift Aid your donation and you will need to tick ‘Yes’ for Gift Aid to be claimed. CAF claim the Gift Aid on our behalf. This Gift Aid declaration will cover your one-off donation or regular donations made via Direct Debit, but does not cover donations made directly to the Columban Missionaries via post, telephone or standing order to our bank account.

Please contact the Mission Office in Solihull on 01564 772 096 or by email to: office@columbans.co.uk to make a Gift Aid declaration. A member of the office staff can:

• Send you a Gift Aid declaration by post or by email.
• Accept a verbal declaration that we will confirm to you in writing.

Many of our supporters have already made a Gift Aid declaration and we will check first to see if we already hold a valid Gift Aid declaration and that your name and address details are up to date. If there are changes to your name or address, we may ask you to complete a new declaration.

How we use the Gift Aid we claim

There are two ways in which we use your donations.

Unrestricted

The donations we receive from our three direct mail appeals sent with the May, September and December issues of the Far East magazine are treated as ‘unrestricted’, which means we can use the donations to support a wide range of ministries, projects and and communities and respond to where the need is greatest. Each year, we receive a request for funds from our international headquarters (Central Administration) to support mission activities in a number of different countries (Columban Regions or Mission Units). We also use these funds to support our mission work in Britain, including our mission awareness and fundraising ministry.

Restricted (designated)

These donations are sent to us in response to occasional appeals for a specific ministry, project or crisis response, or more broadly for the work of a particular Columban missionary or the Columban Region or Mission Unit (country) in which they are based. They are often inspired by articles in the Far East magazine or on our website. In the majority of cases, the donations will be used as requested. Where this is not possible (e.g. there is already enough funding or a Columban Missionary is no longer directly involved), we will use the funding as far as possible to support either similar mission work or where the need is greatest in the Columban Region or Mission Unit concerned.

Gift Aid can be claimed on both unrestricted and restricted donations, but Gift Aid claimed is always treated as unrestricted funding, even if the original donation is restricted.