About The Generous

The Generous is an independent, plain-English guide to giving well — how and where to give, how workplace and payroll giving work, how Gift Aid and legacies make your money go further, and how to choose a charity you can trust.

We started from a simple frustration: giving is one of the most generous things people do, yet the mechanics around it — tax relief, payroll schemes, Gift Aid declarations, checking a charity is genuine — are explained in language that assumes you already understand them. We write the guide we wished we'd had: clear, warm, honest, and never trying to sell you anything.

What we are — and what we're not

We are a guide. We are not a charity, a fundraising service, or a payroll-giving agency, and nothing here is financial advice. We don't collect donations, we don't take a cut of anyone's giving, and we never will. When you're ready to give, you give directly to the charity or through your employer's own scheme — never through us.

Everything we publish about UK giving and tax — Gift Aid, higher-rate relief, payroll giving, inheritance-tax rules on legacies — is written to be accurate to the rules as they stand. Where we use figures to illustrate a point, we label them as illustrative and tell you the assumptions behind them. Your own position depends on your circumstances, and for anything consequential you should check with HMRC or a qualified adviser.

How we're funded

The guide is free to read and carries no adverts between the words. It's kept going by a small number of like-minded organisations who believe good information helps people give better — you'll find them credited plainly in the back pages. Support never buys a mention inside a guide, and it never shapes what we recommend.

Our approach

Three principles guide everything here. Rigour: we get the facts right and show our working. Warmth: generosity is a good instinct, and we write as though we're helping a friend, not filling in a form. Independence: we don't favour big-name charities over small ones, and we'd rather tell you a route isn't right for you than push it.

Ready to start? The ways to give, at a glance is a good first stop, or browse all the guides by section.