Give It - The Company

Give ItThe Company Operation

Give It Limited was incorporated in December 2003, and started operating in March 2004.
We operate a number of services;

  • Give It Wedding websites (launched in February 2006)
  • Give It Gifts (launched in June 2006)
  • The Alternative Wedding List (launched in March 2004)
  • The Alternative Gift List (launched in October 2004)
  • The Alternative Christmas List (launched in November 2004)
  • The Scottish Wedding List (launched in October 2006)
  • The Scottish Gift List (launched in October 2006)
  • The Scottish Christmas List (launched in October 2006)
  • The London Wedding List (launched in April 2007)
  • The London Gift List (launched in April 2007)
  • The London Christmas List (launched in April 2007)

Charities participating in the service include Barnardo's, Help the Aged, Marie Curie Cancer Care, Samaritans, Save the Children and many others.

When guests donate to a charity through this service, 100% of that donation goes to the charity and the costs are covered by the Gift Aid claimed back from the Inland Revenue. Give It claims back an extra 28% of the value of each donation through the Inland Revenue's Gift Aid scheme, which allows charities to claim back from the taxman the tax that any UK taxpayer has already paid. We can do this efficiently as we can make a claim to the Inland Revenue in respect of all the donations made through the service. We do this on behalf of the charities using the details we have on each donation (but we can only do this for donations made by individuals who have confirmed that they are a UK taxpayer).

Give It have invested in developing this service (making it risk-free for charities) and manage all the day-to-day operation and marketing. Give It use the Gift Aid to undertake the following;

  • Cover the costs of development of the various services (including areas such as developing the websites themselves, developing details with charities etc).
  • Cover the costs of the ongoing operation (including credit card costs, website maintenance and hosting, reporting, staffing etc).
  • Marketing the services to ensure further growth (including advertising both in print and online, attending exhibitions particularly wedding shows, generating PR etc).
  • Development of further similar services that will benefit participating charities.

We forecast all these costs in advance so that participating charities know what these will be, and charities also have access to all Give It accounts so that they know how this Gift Aid is being spent and invested and can help us keep costs as efficient as possible.

Charities do not pay any upfront fees or other charges to be part of the service - charities are selected, and approached for their agreement, by Give It to provide choice for users and to continue to develop different gift lists.

Our not-for-profit nature has meant that we are often described as a 'social enterprise' - we're happy with any positive description!

Below you'll find some more background about how we operate.

Our Aims

Our key aims as an organisation are as follows;

  • To generate incremental charitable donations for a broad group of UK registered charities.
  • To operate to a high level of fundraising efficiency through providing a selection of online 'gift' and other services.
  • To operate as a fully trading company on a non-profit making basis within the 'retail/service' industry rather than the 'charitable/fundraising' sector - our aim is to ‘compete’ with other service providers rather than other fundraising options.

Financial principles

  • We operate as a not-for-profit limited company. Gift Aid generated on donations made covers our operating costs - we manage our not-for-profit nature by returning the unused Gift Aid to participating charities.
  • Where income is generated outside of this system (such as with our Give It Wedding Websites service where we generate a ‘profit’ from each website sold) then all of this income, after any direct costs of providing that service to users, is distributed to participating charities.
  • A key element of our not-for-profit set-up is that no form of profits or dividends can be paid to anyone - although this has restricted sources of investment it has also ensured that any funding is of an appropriate nature. We have borrowed privately to fund the early stages of operation (i.e. the ‘risk’ involved in this is carried by the founders rather than the charities), and paying back these zero-interest loans form part of the cost-base in the first years of operation
  • We operate ‘open-book’ accounting with our participating charities - on a monthly basis we provide details of all income and expenditure, and provide forecasts of future plans and expenditure for their input as key stakeholders in the business. Our annual accounts (filed at Companies House) are produced by independent accountants.

Employees

The organisation is currently operated by its’ founders, with some services provided by a small number of third-party suppliers (design work, web services, payment processing etc) along with support, input and assistance from a significant number of volunteers and other organisations.

Any future extended operation of the business will follow the principles below;

  • We will not discriminate against selection of potential employees based on their race, colour, sex, sexuality, disability, religion, political opinion, national extraction, ethnic or social origin.
  • We have an intention to provide flexibility of employment in terms of hours/days worked (in line with how we currently operate, where our 24-hour operation requires a high degree of flexibility, aided significantly by our online set-up).
  • We have an intention, where feasible, to employ people who are local to our office location (to reduce the impact on the environment of any home to work travel), and, where feasible, to facilitate some form of community volunteering programme for employees.
  • We will have an inclusive approach to the operation of the company, involving employees at key stages of decision-making processes (in line with our ongoing process, involving stake-holders as we grow).

The environment

  • Our operation is internet-based and 99% of customer communication is via e-mail, including automated receipts/transaction confirmation. Although the main reason for designing the service in this way was to minimise on-going cost, environmental impact was also considered - future developments will continue to consider the environmental impact of the operation.
  • The main consumables of the operation are traditional office supplies - where possible we a) use recycled products and b) recycle those products we use.

Partnerships

We are keen to develop partnerships with other organisations to achieve our aims;

  • Sponsorship - e.g. we are considering options for sponsorship from businesses within the wedding industry that would allow them to support elements of our various wedding services.
  • Similar organisations - we are keen to develop partnerships with other organisations that operate along similar principles, e.g. we have provided input to a similar organisation overseas developing similar services.
  • Expertise - where we can balance opposing issues such as control versus efficiency we are keen to use other organisations’ expertise in developing our services, e.g. Give It Wedding Websites is a ‘white label’ service, where most of the service is operated by a third-party, Ideal Wedding.

To get in touch with one of our founders contact Andy Hickey at andy@giveit.co.uk