When it comes to charitable giving, every little bit helps. And with micro-donations, even small amounts can make a big difference.
What are micro-donations?
Micro-donations or micro-philanthropy is a form of charitable donation that is small in the donated amount – usually in the range of 50 pence to £10 in the UK. In the past, micro-donations have been used most effectively by companies collecting spare change at till points and checkouts.
Consumers will also have experienced the opportunity to ‘round up’ during charitable drives such as Children in Need and Red Nose Day. This is where, at the time of checkout, a purchaser is asked if they would like to ‘round up’ to the next pound. The difference between their sale amount and rounded-up value gets donated to charity. This is also a micro-donation.
With advances in technology, increased used of mobile phones for payments and a reduction in payment processing fees, micro-donations are becoming more popular and more readily available in the UK. Micro-donations offer charities excellent opportunities to fundraise. A number of charitable fundraising platforms already leverages the potential of micro-philanthropy and collect micro-donations for good causes.
PayCaptain has a new feature which gives employees the option to make micro-donations through payroll by donating their pennies from their pay to charity.
This is a separate feature to Payroll Giving, also known as Give As You Earn (‘GAYE’), where employees reduce their taxable pay to make donations to charities of their choice directly from their gross pay. To read more about Payroll Giving, click here. Giving pennies from your pay is PayCaptain’s micro-donation functionality.
How do micro-donations work for employers with PayCaptain?
Firstly, employers need to decide which organisation they want to be their chosen corporate charity. All donations made by paying pennies from payroll will be donated to the chosen charity.
PayCaptain recommends communicating to employees about the new functionality and the benefits to the chosen charity before activating the functionality in the app.
Messaging in the app for sign up to the scheme can be customised – including branding and message text. The messaging includes the question asking the employee whether they would like to donate their pennies to the chosen charity as well as the thank you text from the employer.
When the pay run has been completed, PayCaptain handles the payment direct to the chosen corporate charity as well as reporting back to the employer the value of the donations each month from those that have opted-in to the scheme. This is information that can subsequently be communicated back to the employees.
How do micro-donations work through payroll with PayCaptain for employees?
Instead of donating a set amount of money to charity, an employee can elect to have their net pay rounded down to the next full pound, with the excess going to charity. So, if an employees’ net pay is £1,000.96, it could be rounded down to £1000 and the extra 96 pence is then donated to charity.
The scheme is optional and the employee will be asked if they would like to opt-into donate the pennies from their net pay. Employees can both opt in and opt out of the donation scheme through the PayCaptain app.
Particularly in organisations with large numbers of employees that sign up to the scheme to donate pennies from their pay, the charitable donation can be valuable and extremely beneficial to a charity, whilst having very limited impact on the individual employee.
Micro-donating through donating pennies from pay to charity is an easy, affordable way of giving to charity each month. Not only that, but micro-donations are a great way to get started with charitable giving if the employee is unsure where to start. The donation is limited to a maximum of 99 pence so it’s an easy way to contribute and support a charity if the employee is tight on time or money.
How does PayCaptain help?
The new functionality – Donating pennies from your pay – is already available inthe PayCaptain app. Employers simply need to advise PayCaptain that they would like to activate the functionality and the name of their chosen corporate charity. PayCaptain will do the rest!
PayCaptain will customise the messaging in the app and even supply the information to communicate the new feature out to the employer’s team. When the pay run is processed, PayCaptain will deduct the pennies from payroll for those employees who have opted in and make the payment to the corporate charity. The total value of the donation from payroll will be reported back to the business.
If you’d like to know more about donating pennies from your pay and the host of innovative features in PayCaptain, please contact us and we’ll be happy to talk through how we can help your business.
PayCaptain Payroll Solutions Limited, www.paycaptain.com is an HR/FinTech company that delivers a fully automated cloud payroll service. The solution contains many unique and innovative features for employees, helping them to take control of their pay and increase their financial well-being. PayCaptain is a payroll solution that helps employers pay their workforce, regardless of income and personal circumstances. The solution also incorporates functionality that is specifically designed to positively impact financial resilience for people struggling with money, or vulnerable and low-income employees.
PayCaptain is the first payroll company to be B-Corporation certified in the world. To read more about B-Corporations, visit www.bcorporation.net
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