Is JustTextGiving for free to charities in Northern Ireland?
JustTextGiving is a wonderful opportunity for UK charities to benefit from text donations from mobile phones but as a local charity discovered the process of joining the scheme is more complicated than it first seems.
JustGiving are not accepting the HMRC number which all Northern Ireland charities use as their equivalent of a charity registration number. Therefore Northern Ireland 'charities' have to become ordinary members of JustGiving at their standard rates of £15/month + 5% transaction fee on donations.
JustGiving has explained that the late establishment of the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland would mean JustGiving would have to check each individual organisation to confirm their charitable status and they would simply not have the resources for this.
Fortunately JustGiving are running a promotional free membership until the end of 31st December 2011 which means organisations here can sign up for free. Then - so long as you cancel your ordinary JustGiving membership by the end of the free period you can continue to use the JustTextGiving service for free after that.
NICVA has written to JustGiving to ask them to reconsider the eligibility rules for Northern Ireland charities.
JustTextGiving is an exciting partnership between Vodafone and JustGiving, and is supported by The Vodafone Foundation (Registered charity 1089625).
