Welcome to the UK Online Charities site

UK Online Charities aim to provide you with a guide for finding, joining & helping UK based & International charities. You can do this by making one off donations, setting up a monthly direct debit to donate, or by just registering your support for your chosen charity. Charity credit cards are also a way of donating money to your favourite good cause!

In many countries, the charity sector is quickly growing. Charities often take over services that used to be provided by the state, such as health services or elderly care, when the state ceases to fulfill these traditional social responsibilities.

 

What are charities?

WWF MembershipUK charities are non profit organisations that carry out activities that help society such as charity events & fund rasing and help fund vital research into medical conditions such as cancer or heart disease, helping children & poverty and help raise awareness of endangered species by such acts as "adopting an animal" sponsorship schemes.

These charities cover a huge range of important good causes including animal charities, cancer charities, childrens charities, disability charities, environment charities, health charities, housing charities and people charities. Many charities also operate virtual gift shops, which sell lots of innovative "virtual" gifts that benefit the poor & vulnerable of the world.

Please visit the charity sites found throughout our website & help them where possible, by giving either a one off charity donation, or setting up monthly direct debit donations to your chosen good cause.

 

There were over 200,000 registered charities in the UK at the start of 2005.

  • The 190,000+ charities in England and Wales are generally registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. The Charity Commission has an online register listing them all. Many charities take the form of limited liability companies and these are also registered with Companies House. (The main reason for using a company is to obtain limited liability for the trustees). Major changes to English charity law are contained in the Charities Act 2006.
  • The 5,000 or so charities in Northern Ireland are registered with the Inland Revenue. There is no central register or regulatory body for these charities, but this situation is currently under discussion.

 

Charity Credit Cards

Breast Cancer credit cardThere are a number of charity credit cards available, which offer to give money to your chosen charities as you spend on the card. They will usually make an initial donation when you first use the card & then pay further payments as a percentage of your spend. See our complete list of charity credit cards.

 

Gift Aid ...

Any charity registered with the Charity Commission can take advantage of schemes allowing them to reclaim your tax.

In the United Kingdom, Gift Aid is a scheme to enable tax-effective giving by individuals and companies to UK charities. In outline, Gift Aid allows individuals who are subject to UK income tax to complete a simple, short declaration that they are a UK taxpayer. All the charity needs is your name, address and a declaration that you're a UK taxpayer. All our online charities will have a box which will ask you to make the declaration, so all you will need to do is tick it. Alternatively, as only a verbal statement need be given, this can even be done over the phone.

Any cash donations that the taxpayer makes to the charity are then treated as being made after deduction of income tax at the basic rate (22% in 2006/7) and the charity can reclaim the basic rate income tax paid on the gift, adding approximately 28% to the value of the gift (e.g. you give £50, the charity gets £64.10). Those people paying tax at the higher 40% rate are able to reclaim the extra 18% tax they've paid for themselves on top of this, so on £50 that's another £11.50.

Shop for Charity

Just by shopping online you can help charities. We tell you where to go shopping and help charity. You can also use certain cashback sites to donate money to your chosen charity!

Click to Give sites

Click to Give sites operate under a very simple premise - click the button on the site (it's free) and a free cup of foodstuff is bought for someone, somewhere, who is hungry. Alternative donations are free mammograms, free child healthcare, donating land to protect endangered habitat, free food & care for rescued animals or free books to improve literacy.

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