HMRC allows you to claim Gift Aid on aggregated donations provided as sponsorships of a participant in a particular event - for example, someone competing in the London Marathon.
It means that rather than collecting separate declarations from individuals, a fundraiser can get sponsors to all fill out the same form, often making collections easier. You'll imagine a form like this example from HMRC that a fundraiser might give to you:
HMRC requires:
All donors to agree to the declaration, just like individual Gift Aid declarations
Assurance that no single donation is more than £500 (if higher, these donors must have their own declaration)
In Beacon you would:
Create an aggregated Payment record, linked to the person being sponsored
Create a Gift Aid declaration record, linked to the person being sponsored (we recommend you add a copy of the sponsorship Gift Aid declaration form as attachment)
We'll then include these donations as part of your Gift Aid claims in Beacon!
Tip: If having all the donors in your database would be useful, you should create individual People, Payment, and Gift Aid declaration records for each donation on the sheet instead of following this guide.
Add sponsorship payment
Create a new Payment record, setting the amount as the total collected by the fundraiser
Tick the 'Sponsorship?' and 'Gift Aid Allowed?' checkboxes
Add the person being sponsored to the 'Fundraiser' field. The 'Payer' field should be blank as the money will be from multiple people.
Set the 'Payment date' as the date of the last donation on the sheet
Add any extra information that you need!
Note: If not all payments collected on a sponsor form are eligible for Gift Aid, create separate sponsorship payments in Beacon:
Total of all Gift Aid-able donations (with Gift Aid allowed checked)
Total of all non-Gift Aid-able donations (with Gift Aid allowed unchecked)
Add sponsorship Gift Aid declaration
Create a new Gift Aid declaration record, setting the 'Person' as the fundraiser
Tick the 'Sponsorship?' checkbox
Set the 'Declaration date', 'Start date', and 'End date' all as the same date as the 'Payment date' of the Payment record.
(Recommended) Upload the sponsors' declarations sheet to the 'Attachments' field
Gift Aid eligibility
In Beacon, the eligibility criteria changes when a payment is marked as a sponsorship:
If a payment matches all criteria, it'll be added to the open Gift Aid claim and be ready to submit at the start of the next month.
For more information on sponsorship eligibility criteria in Beacon, see this article.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I find more guidance about sponsorship payments?
More information about sponsorship Gift Aid declarations and claiming is available from HMRC's detailed guidance here:
Since we are not tax specialists, if you have more questions we recommend chatting to a Gift Aid or charity tax expert who will be able to advise you further.
Do I have to aggregate donations together from sponsorship payments?
No! If you have the details of each donor, you can absolutely add them individually like any other donation.
In fact - we think it's better to include individuals wherever possible so that you can steward them as donors and see their other interactions with you.