Welcome to the Big Fun Walk 2010

If you and/or your sponsors would like to give under Gift Aid, please read this explanation of how it works so that you can ensure we have essential information.

What Gift Aid means to us

For the 2010 Big Fun Walk we again offer sponsors the option of Gift Aid giving. For every £1 Gift Aided to us by a UK taxpayer we can claim an extra 28p from HM Revenue & Customs, and it doesn’t cost the giver anything extra. In this way, the proceeds of the 2009 Big Fun Walk were increased by over £15,000.

What we need to know

For us to claim Gift Aid on a donation we need to know the sponsor's first and last name and their home address, and they must tick the Gift Aid box. If they wish to keep their home address confidential, they must show at least their first and last name, their house name or number and their full postcode. Without this information we cannot claim the extra money they intend us to have.

Why we need to know this

The Gift Aid money that we claim from Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (the taxman) is paid to us from the ‘community chest’ which is comprised of all the tax that we all pay every year. When you tick the Gift Aid box, you are making a declaration that you have paid (or will pay) into that communal pot an amount at least equal to the sum that we are claiming from it.

From time to time HMRC may carry out an audit of our Gift Aid claims. This is to check that we have been doing our part of the process properly and is not a check on donors. We need to be able to show that each Gift Aided donation came from someone whom we reasonably believed was a real person living at a real address and that we have not just made up names and addresses in order to claim additional funding.

It therefore follows that if you make a Gift Aid donation but don’t provide the information we ask for, we cannot claim the extra money that you wanted us to have. That is why we ask you to read and understand how Gift Aid giving works - so that you will be confident that you can give us maximum support.

(Please note that different rules apply to donations paid by charity cheques or vouchers and to donations made by businesses or charitable trusts, and therefore those kinds of donations cannot be Gift Aided.)

Confidentiality

Please be assured that the information you provide is used only for essential record-keeping and will be safely destroyed at the end of the period for which we are obliged to keep it. We never, ever, have or need any information about your tax or financial affairs – we know only your name, address and how much money you are giving us.

Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to read this explanation, and for helping to ensure that with your help the Big Fun Walk will go from strength to strength.