Choose your platform carefully
Not all fundraising platforms charge the same, and the differences matter more than most people realise. Some take a percentage of every donation; others charge a fixed monthly fee; a handful pass everything through to the charity with no platform fee at all. A platform that charges 5% of a £1,000 total quietly removes £50 before the charity sees a penny.
Gift Aid is the single easiest way to increase what your fundraising delivers
The big names in the UK — JustGiving, GoFundMe Charity, Enthuse and a few smaller alternatives — each have different fee structures, and those structures change periodically, so it is worth checking the current rates directly before you set up. What you are looking for is two things: transparency about exactly what is deducted, and whether Gift Aid collection is built in. If a platform handles Gift Aid declarations from donors, it can claim an extra 25p per £1 from HMRC on behalf of the charity — no extra cost, no extra effort, and potentially a significant uplift on a well-supported campaign.
Payment-processing fees are a separate layer and largely unavoidable: card networks charge these regardless of which platform you use. Some platforms absorb them; most pass them on. Some offer donors the option to cover the processing fee themselves, which is worth enabling — a meaningful proportion of donors will tick that box, and it costs nothing to offer it.
Set up your page to maximise Gift Aid
Gift Aid is the single easiest way to increase what your fundraising delivers. For every £1 a UK taxpayer donates, the charity can claim an additional 25p from HMRC — but only if the donor makes a valid Gift Aid declaration. The donor must be a UK taxpayer who has paid at least as much income tax or capital gains tax as the charity will claim.
Most major fundraising platforms handle this with a single checkbox during checkout. Your job is to make sure that checkbox is visible and that your page encourages donors to complete it honestly. Do not tell people to tick it if they are unsure — an invalid declaration costs the charity money, because HMRC can claw back an overclaimed amount. A brief, plain sentence on your page — something like "If you pay UK tax, please tick the Gift Aid box when you donate" — is all it takes.
One thing worth knowing: Gift Aid applies to direct donations to a registered charity. If you are fundraising for a cause that is not itself a registered charity, the platform may not be able to collect Gift Aid at all. Check before you commit to a platform. The Charity Commission register is the right place to confirm a charity's status.
For donors who pay higher-rate or additional-rate tax, there is further relief they can claim personally — but that is their business to pursue, not yours to set up. Your role is to make sure the basic Gift Aid declaration is available and clearly explained.
Write a page that makes people want to give
A fundraising page with strong Gift Aid uptake and low fees is already doing well — but it still needs to convert visitors into donors. A few things make a measurable difference.
A specific target, publicly visible, creates momentum: people are more likely to give to a campaign that is visibly progressing toward a goal than to one with no number attached. Set a real, justified figure and explain briefly how it was reached — "£500 covers twenty hours of support sessions" is more compelling than a round number with no context.
Keep the story short and specific. Fundraising pages with long descriptions often perform worse than tight ones, because most people read them on a phone, in passing, with limited attention. One clear paragraph explaining who benefits and why you are raising the money outperforms five paragraphs of background every time.
Update the page when something happens — a milestone reached, a personal moment during your sponsored event, a thank-you after a good day of donations. Updates go out to people who have already given, keeping them engaged and occasionally prompting them to share the page with others.
Finally, share it deliberately rather than scattergun. A direct message to someone explaining why you are fundraising converts better than a generic post. It takes longer, but it produces more donations and, typically, larger ones.
The practical checklist
Before you publish, run through these: platform fees confirmed; Gift Aid collection enabled; charity registration verified; target amount set with a brief explanation; page description short and specific; sharing plan in place. None of these takes long, and together they mean more of every pound you raise lands where it was always meant to go.