Interview: Why employers should offer a payroll giving scheme

This Payroll Giving Month, we caught up with Senior Workplace Giving Manager for Barnardo’s and Chair of the Payroll Giving Forum, Terry Stokes. With payroll giving a hugely important fundraising stream for Barnardo’s, Terry talks to GoodPAYE about why more organisations need to offer the scheme and how GoodPAYE is making the scheme much more accessible to SMEs.

Why do you think Payroll Giving has suffered a low uptake amongst employers and employees in the UK?

The uptake of Payroll Giving in the UK has suffered in comparison to the United States. Payroll Giving in this country has been around for over 35 years, but only 3% of employees currently give through their pay. If we look at the United States, we see an industry that donates through pay of over $5 billion each year. So it’s significant.

But there’s a cultural reason why people give through their pay in the United States. It is widespread, it’s known about and there’s an awareness. We just simply lack that in this country. And that’s what we need to do and that’s what we need to change, so more companies are aware of it and therefore more employees are aware of it.

Why is it important for the charity sector that organisations offer Payroll Giving to their employees?

It’s incredibly important to the whole of the charity sector that employers offer Payroll Giving to their staff. It’s a really tax efficient way to give. It enables the employer to meet their corporate social responsibility needs, it’s really easy to administer, and it delivers already over 100 million to the charity sector each year. But it’s untapped and there’s so much more we can do. It’s really good for the employer, it’s really good for the employee. And it’s important now for employees to see that their employers are engaging with causes that matter most to them.

How is GoodPAYE bringing something different to the sector?

The thing that differentiates GoodPAYE from what’s going on in the sector historically, is this desire to bring innovation and a digital led approach as an answer to Payroll Giving. Payroll Giving in the United Kingdom has been around for 35 years, but there’s been traditional ways that we’ve done stuff – and we need to challenge that, and challenge ourselves for the greater good of the sector.

Payroll Giving already brings in over 100 million each year, but only 3% of employees currently do it. 80% of employers don’t even offer this scheme; so there’s a real lack of awareness. The ability of GoodPAYE, which is a 100% charity owned organisation, to deliver new audiences – notably SMEs and even companies that have three or four employees – to enable those employees to give through their pay is something that could be a transformative step for the sector.

GoodPAYE have high ambitions, and they will achieve those ambitions because they can see the wider innovation that’s happening in the charity sector, and they want to bring that to Payroll Giving.

So this month is Payroll Giving Month. What is the importance of having months like this?

For many years Payroll Giving has lacked a space in the calendar where it could be promoted. We have that already, if we think about the equivalent in the legacy sector, Remember a Charity, there’s a space every year where it’s promoted. There are notable other examples of where charities come together to promote at a particular time of year – Giving Tuesday being a prime example of that.

What we want to do as Payroll Giving professionals within the sector, is have a charity-led campaign, a charity-led moment in the calendar where we can talk about Payroll Giving and we can say to charities to promote it, have a discussion about it, use the benefits of Payroll Giving to talk to your donors about this way of giving.

The same for employers as well. We say to them at this point of the year, speak to them and promote Payroll Giving. So it’s really an opportunity to shine a light on what has previously been a form of giving that probably hasn’t had the prominence it’s needed.

What impact does Payroll Giving have for Barnardo’s?

Payroll Giving is incredibly important for Barnardo’s. We’ve been receiving money through Payroll Giving since its start in 1987, and over the last 35 years it has brought in tens of millions of pounds to Barnardo’s to enable us to get that money to frontline services. We have helped tens of thousands of children and young people directly as a result of Payroll Giving. It’s a tax efficient way of giving, and it’s enabled us to reach out and support many more people than we would have been able to without it. It’s an incredibly valuable source of income for us.

And lastly, why do you personally give to charity?

I give to charities and causes that means something personal to me, something that I’ve connected with either in my work life or in my personal life. But life is really busy. I’m a Dad of a 12 year old who keeps me really occupied, and I don’t necessarily have the time to do all the things I would love to do to support charities. But payroll giving enables me to support a charity in a tax efficient way that whereby I know my money is going to help causes that are personally dear to me.

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