Giving White Paper
The Giving White Paper hopes to address the concern that the giving of time and money has flat lined and is warned to decline. Their priorities are:
- Introducing new incentives for giving
- Supporting innovators and leaders
- Making it easier to give
- Providing better support for those offering and managing opportunities to give
- Helping to build social norms
- Focusing extra support on vulnerable communities
- Helping to channel the energy and creativity of partners across society.
The Government is going to be investing a considerable amount of money into volunteering and social action over the next two years in the form of:
£40 million for:
- Social Action Fund providing funding to schemes that will expand giving in priority areas and groups such as young people and the (fast approaching retirement) baby boomers and schemes with the potential to uplift levels of time, money and reciprocity given either nationally or replicating ideas in local areas
- Challenge Prizes to reward the best solutions to a series of volunteer challenges charities or social enterprises can claim prizes individuals can donate their winnings to their chosen charity.
The Community First programme, providing £80 million for:
- Neighbourhood Matched Fund Programme comprising financial support for community-lead projects in deprived areas which requires matched funding including volunteer time
- In addition in order to build local endowments through philanthropic donations an Endowment Match Challenge will also be available.
A local infrastructure fund of £30 million:
- This fund will be delivered by the Big Lottery Fund to improve support for frontline services by helping both volunteering and general infrastructure organisations to modernise and improve the relevance of their services.
Other provisions:
Other provision include people giving their time by introducing continually updates CRB checks to reduce need to have new checks when moving positions and substantially reducing the coverage of the Vetting and Barring Scheme, these proposals are being taken forward in the Protection of Freedoms Bill currently going through Parliament.
The Government has laid considerable emphasis on match funding and providers should be considering how they can engage their local communities’ individuals and local businesses to support their work by giving their time, expertise and money.
The paper expects that time giving should be rewarded perhaps with complementary currencies, for example, theatre tickets and free swimming session, donors of money should be able to see the impact of their contribution and giving should be as easy as possible utilising ATMs and mobile phones to give skills and expertise.
The Government has also outlined changes to Gift Aid enabling online filing to reduce paper work, allowing tax relief on small cash donations such as collection boxes and reducing tax on legacy donations.
Other Government departments are also developing policies that encourage participation including:
- Department of Health Health and Social Care Volunteering Fund which providers two grant funding schemes, one local aimed at supporting volunteering in health and social care and the other for national organisations to apply for awards of up to £200,000 to deliver volunteering programmes
- DCLG in partnership with Church of England is investing £5 million over three years in four deprived areas making best use of existing strengths and resources within these communities.
Download Giving White Paper from the Cabinet Office website.
