Virgin Money Giving is one of the biggest charitable donation fundraising platforms. It is used by many’s a marathon runner and big Scottish charities.
Today, the not-for-profit arm of Virgin Money UK PLC is announcing that they will cover the 2% platform fee until the end of the coronavirus lockdown. Earlier in the week they admitted to coming under fire about their charges, and reaffirmed that they do not make anything out of the donations. All the charges go towards covering their costs.
The platform fee that VMG charges is intended to cover its running costs, enabling it to offer charities and others with a safe place to raise money. Virgin Money is offering a waiver of this fee to ensure that all the generous donations ‘stretch even further’.
There was a previous scheme by which donors could cover the 2% platform fee by adding it to their donation. In September last year this was expanded to cover the 2.5% payment processing fee. Virgin Money says that this makes the service free to the charities for over 80% of donations.
Now that 2% platform fee will be removed although donors are still given the option to cover the payment processing fee.
David Duffy, CEO said:“With many charities seeing a large drop in their fundraising contributions during lockdown, we want to make it that little bit easier for all the generous donors, fundraisers and the charities they support. We believe that a not-for-profit model is the only way for a digital fundraising platform like VMG to ensure as much money as possible goes to good causes while maintaining a safe, secure and user-friendly service.
“But in this extraordinary and challenging time we wanted to do more to support the generosity of the public and our beloved charities.
“By covering VMG’s small platform fee for the rest of lockdown, we hope to help charities raise much needed funds to continue their valuable work during the worst of this pandemic.”
Virgin Money Giving is the biggest not for profit online fundraising website. It was set up in 2009 and has helped those raising money pull in over £800 million in that time.
Earlier this week they put this notice on their Facebook page to make this status clear.
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