Localgiving.com

Localgiving.com
Localgiving
Headquarters London, UK
Website www.localgiving.com

Localgiving.com is an online fundraising platform dedicated to small local charities and community groups in the UK. It is operated by Localgiving, a not-for-profit social enterprise in the United Kingdom. Localgiving was founded in 2008 by Marcelle Speller in partnership with UKCF UK Community Foundations, previously known as Community Foundation Network (CFN). Its aim is to enable donations to small, local charities and community groups, and to help those charities to be sustainable by providing access to an online marketing and donation process. Localgiving.com is a limited company, jointly owned by two registered charities: CFN (20%) and the Localgiving Foundation (formerly Ardbrack Foundation) (80%).

Localgiving.com enables charities and community organisations too small to register with the Charity Commission or, in Scotland, the OSCR to benefit from an infrastructure that simplifies the giving process. Localgiving.com provides support to small, grass roots aid organisations across the country.

The site helps local groups to promote themselves to local donors by creating their own page highlighting their work and fundraising activities. Its search engine breaks the search down by cause and area, and so helps potential donors to find charities of interest to them. Simple tools then let supporters make a donation, claim Gift Aid and stay in touch with favourite charities. Localgiving.com also helps groups to access new sources of funding by taking part in initiatives such as match funding.

Mission statement

Localgiving.com’s stated mission is “to enable philanthropic giving to small local charities and community groups in the UK.”[1]

History

Localgiving.com founder Marcelle Speller OBE and Matthew Bowcock, Chair of CFN, identified the need for Localgiving.com while at an Institute of Philanthropy course in 2007.[2] Speller established Localgiving.com in 2008, and in April 2010 she transferred all her shares to the CFN and the Ardbrack Foundation.

The pilot phase of Localgiving.com began in autumn 2009 with a user group of eight Community Foundations supporting communities in Berkshire, London, Calderdale, Essex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Hertfordshire, Kent, and Scotland. By the end of the pilot phase in September 2010, 161 local charities and community organisations had signed up. And by the end of 2012, the number of charities registered on the site had grown to over 3,000 and Localgiving.com was working with 40+ Community Foundations across the country.

Localgiving.com has helped local charities and community groups to raise over £3 million through a series of "match funding" with grants provided by the Office for Civil Society and individual philanthropists. Its 2013 Grow Your Tenner campaign turned £500,000 of Cabinet Office funding into over £1.5 million in donations to local charities across England.

Grow Your Tenner

Grow Your Tenner is Localgiving's annual national match fund campaign, leveraging multiple match fund pots to double online donations of up to £10. In 2013 the campaign turned a match fund pot of £500,000, provided by the Cabinet Office, into over £1.5 million worth of donations to over 1,300 local charities in England. The campaign typically runs between October and December each year.

Marcelle Speller

Marcelle Speller BSc, MBA, OBE, PhD (Hon), is the founder, chairman and funder of Localgiving.com. She is also a trustee of CFN and founder of the Localgiving Foundation, a personal foundation with a mission to enable philanthropic giving to local charities and community groups.[3]

Speller has an MBA from INSEAD. She spent more than 10 years in leading advertising agencies in London and Amsterdam, and held various Director and Board-level marketing positions with multinational companies including American Express, Avis and Inter-Continental Hotels.

In 1996, Speller co-founded Holiday-Rentals.com, which became Europe’s leading website for advertising private holiday homes. The company was sold to HomeAway Inc in 2005.[4]

Marcelle Speller appeared on Channel 4 Television's The Secret Millionaire in October 2010, when she went undercover in Plymouth, Devon.[5] In the course of the programme, she gave away almost £100,000 to five local groups: Diggin’ It, Friends and Families of Special Children, Jeremiah’s Journey, Welcome Hall, and Horizons.[6]

In December 2010 Speller contributed to the Cabinet Office's Giving Green Paper with the essay "Giving in Local Communities"[7] and to the Thunderer column in The Times.[8]

In the Queen's 2011 Birthday Honours Marcelle Speller was awarded an OBE for her service to the voluntary sector.[9]

Speller has become a recognised spokesperson for TV, radio and print media for comment on philanthropy issues as they affect small, local charities and community groups. In April 2012, she was widely quoted across all media when the government suggested a cap on tax relief for major donors.[10][11]

In July 2014, Speller was awarded an honorary PhD from the University of East Anglia.

Community Foundation Network

The CFN is a registered charity and the national association that connects all the UK community foundations. In addition the CFN also represents the UK community foundations at national and international level. There are 58 community foundations in the UK covering 98% of the population.[12]

Gift Aid

Main article: Gift Aid

Gift Aid increases the value of donations by allowing charities and Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASCs) to reclaim basic rate tax on gifts. When donors make gifts from income on which they have already paid tax, charities or CASCs can reclaim the basic rate tax from HMRC.[13]

Localgiving.com allows donors to claim Gift Aid when giving to voluntary community groups that are not registered by the Charity Commission by having the community foundations, who vet the charitable groups, receive the money for them.[14]

Publicity

Localgiving.com has featured in national, local and online publications, such as the "Civil Society" 15 March 2012,, "Northampton Chronicle and Echo" 27 April 2012 , "Plymouth Herald" 14 May 2012 , "The Guardian" 24 May 2012 and "Birmingham Mail" 9 October 2012

Following the screening of The Secret Millionaire and the launch of Localgiving.com in Devon, the website has featured in numerous local publications including South West Business[15] and the Plymouth Post.[4]

See also

Comparable organisations raising money for charity using technology:

References

  1. ↑ About us on official website
  2. ↑ Sophie Hudson, "Big Giver: Marcelle Speller, Local Giving", "Third Sector", October 19, 2010
  3. ↑ Ardbrack Foundation
  4. 1 2 "Secret millionaire returns to Devon to celebrate launch of localgiving.com", "Plymouth Post", November 8, 2010
  5. ↑ "The Secret Millionaire"
  6. ↑ "The Secret Millionaire: Celebrating those who can be bothered"
  7. ↑ "Giving Green Paper"
  8. ↑ Marcelle Speller, You don’t have to be a Rockefeller to set up a charity, The Times, 30 December 2010
  9. ↑ Queen's Birthday Honours List 2011, Direct.gov.uk, 11 June 2011
  10. ↑ Charity tax relief proposals are galling says philanthropist, Daily Telegraph
  11. ↑ Charity tax row, BBC News 15 April, 2012
  12. ↑ FAQ, CFN
  13. ↑ "Giving to charity through Gift Aid"
  14. ↑ Ben Eyre, "Milestone development in community philanthropy announced at CFN conference", "Philanthropy UK", 17 September 2009
  15. ↑ “Secret millionaire is helping people grow”, "South West Business", 9 November 2010

External links

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