Does JustGiving charge “admin costs” of Tom Moore’s fundraising donations? Fact Check

Messages spreading on social media claim that JustGiving, the fundraising platform which is hosting the Tom Moore “100 laps” campaign for the NHS, is keeping a percentage of people’s donations.

Many messages claim the amount charged by JustGiving is a “large percentage” and could exceed £2 million pounds.

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Tom Moore is a 99 year old army veteran who walked the length of his garden 100 times to raise money for the UK’s National Health Service amid the coronavirus pandemic. His efforts have broken many records, and have – at the time of writing – raised over £25 million pounds.

Examples of these messages on social media are below.

Absolutely disgusted that ‘Just Giving’ are keeping a large percentage of Captain Tom Moore’s fundraising money for their own admin costs

Absolutely disgusted that ‘Just Giving’ are keeping a large percentage of Captain Tom Moore’s fundraising money for their own admin costs Surely under these extenuating circumstances they should waive this? I bet most people believed that every penny donated would go to the NHS! PLEASE COPY, PASTE, SHARE. Just Giving – SHAME ON YOU!!

‘Just Giving’ are skimming a huge amount from all the donations for “admin” costs. A conservative estimate is around 2 million pounds!

TLDR: JustGiving scrapped their 5% platform fee in 2019, and as such is now 0%. A small percentage is charged for card processing fees (fees incurred by JustGiving) and a 5% percentage is taken from the Gift Aid amount (if added.) Users have the option of contributing money directly to JustGiving as they make their donation, but this is optional.

The messages tie into a broader and contentious debate that has been rolling on for a number of years, and that is how fundraising platforms fund themselves considering that most (or the only) money paid into them is intended for charity.

While it obviously would be ideal for 100% of all money paid to a fundraising campaign to go directly to its respective cause, fundraising platforms incur a number of financial overheads, such as website development, maintenance and hosting, as well as employee wages, technology processing fees and other administrative costs.

Fundraising platforms have explored a variety of different methods to overcome this. Some charge charities a one-off fee in order for them to receive money through their platform. Others take a percentage of the total amount raised in a particular campaign. And others ask for voluntary donations to be made directly to the platform. Others use a variety of all these methods to lower the percentage or amount taken from each.

Perhaps the exception to this was Wonderful.org, which was funded by financial partners. This site purported 100% of donations would make their way to their respective charity. However the site had a smaller capacity than its larger counterparts and in 2020 announced its potential closure.

In regards to JustGiving specifically, the platform had previously taken 5% cut from all donations paid into it, but amid the aforementioned controversies, this was scrapped in March 2019. Now the site has a 0% platform fee, and takes a 1.9% + 20p card processing fee for each donation. As the name implies, this is to cover card processing costs.

Across JustGiving, our payment processing fee is 1.9% + £0.20. This accounts for the varying costs of processing different payment types (e.g. PayPal, credit cards, and debit cards).

The platform can also take a 5% fee on the Gift Aid amount, but only if Gift Aid was added to the donation (and to confirm, this fee doesn’t eat into a person’s original donation since Gift Aid is added on top of that amount.) Charities can opt out of this service by contacting JustGiving.

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To compensate for scrapping the 5% platform fee, JustGiving offers its users the chance to make a voluntary contribution (defaulted at 10%) which would go directly to JustGiving. This would be paid on top of the donation amount (so the full donation would still go to the intended cause) and users can opt out of this and pay nothing. It is worth noting that a user will have to change the option to 0% to avoid this voluntary donation.

From JustGiving’s website –

If you’re donating to a charity in the UK or Ireland, JustGiving has a 0% platform fee on donations made through the site, donors have the option to add a voluntary contribution on top of their donation instead. This voluntary contribution is reinvested in to ensuring our users have a seamless and enjoyable experience using our platform.
We then deduct the payment processing fee on each donation of 1.9% + 20p. If the donation is made is a currency other than GBP, the processing fee becomes 2.9% + 20p.

To put that into context with real numbers, JustGiving offer an example with a £30 (plus Gift Aid) donation.

JustGiving have said over their social media channels that they expect “over 97%” of all donations made by Tom Moore’s fundraising campaign to reach the UK’s National Health Service via its charity NHS Charities Together.

…we’re proud to have helped support Captain Tom raise such an incredible amount for NHS Charities Together. We will not be claiming £2m from the appeal, after deducting our processing fees, over 97% of the total raised will go straight to charity.

It is worth noting that JustGiving’s parent company, Blackbaud, has also donated £100,000 through Tom Moore’s campaign.
 
Of course we may all have our own ideas on what could qualify as a “large” or unacceptable percentage going to processing fees on donations, but the reality is that unless fundraising platforms can find funding behind-the-scenes, they will have to fund themselves using the money provided to them. Different platforms have various methods and take slightly varying amounts from the money donated, though from what we have seen when investigating these claims, they are all advertised rather well, so potential donors can evaluate them before parting with their money.

JustGiving, like most platforms, do charge a fee. Though many rumours spreading online exaggerate that fee, so we rank these claims as Mixture.