Beacon makes it easy to collect Gift Aid declarations directly on your website. There's no file uploads, no documents to print off and scan; just a simple checkbox that your donors can submit to make their declaration.
See how declarations work on different types of form:
Tip: You may find it helpful to learn how Beacon helps you collect Gift Aid before reading this article.
The Gift Aid declaration record
In Beacon, Gift Aid declarations are a kind of record, just like people, payments, or organisations.
Tip: If you need a refresher on how data lives in Beacon, you can watch the video in our getting started article.
Below shows the main information that's stored on Gift Aid declarations:
Importantly, this Gift Aid declaration includes a Person field, that links it to the donor who made the declaration.
Donors must have a valid Gift Aid declaration for payments to be claimed through Beacon. Learn more about what makes payments eligible for Gift Aid.
Note: The individual Gift Aid record would represent the Person's declaration - so no need to generate a separate document to link to the record!
Donation forms
When you create a donation form in Beacon, you'll see a Gift Aid declaration section in the form settings:
When making their donation, this section provides donors with the option to make a declaration. It is not compulsory, as not all donors are UK taxpayers.
If donors tick the box when making their donation, a Gift Aid declaration record will be automatically created in Beacon when they make the donation.
Here's an example of a Beacon donation form collecting Gift Aid declarations.
Membership forms
Membership forms behave exactly like donation forms. New members are provided with the option to make a declaration when paying for their membership or additional donation.
Note: By default, we assume that membership payments are not Gift Aid eligible. If this is not the case, you should set 'Membership fee' as an allowed type in Settings > Gift Aid, and then add 'Gift Aid allowed?' as checked in the fixed data section of your form, specifically in the following sections:
One-off membership payments
Membership subscriptions
Event registration forms
Event registration forms behave exactly like donation forms. Attendees are provided with the option to make a declaration when paying for their tickets or additional donation.
Note: By default, we assume that tickets are not Gift Aid eligible. If this is not the case, you should set 'Ticket' as an allowed type in Settings > Gift Aid, and then add 'Gift Aid allowed?' as checked in the fixed data section of your form, specifically in the following sections:
Ticket payments
Signup forms
You can also use Beacon's signup forms to collect Gift Aid declarations. Unlike donation and membership forms, signup forms do not process payments.
They are useful for a wide range of scenarios, including collecting Gift Aid declarations.
The next time you need to collect a Gift Aid declaration from a donor, don't worry about sending them a PDF to print out, scan, and email back to you! You can just send them to a declaration form that links directly to your Beacon database, like this.
Unlike donation and membership forms, with signup forms you can make Gift Aid declarations compulsory (which they are by default):
Note: if your form is purely for the purposes of collecting Gift Aid declarations, you should require form submitters to tick the box. If it's an optional extra on a signup form collecting other information, it should not be required.
Adding a Gift Aid declaration section to your signup form
On your signup form settings, scroll to Form sections and click Add section
Choose Gift Aid declaration
Save your form. That's it! Click View form in the top-right to try it out!