Getting your appeal wording right

Charities often run appeals for specific purposes or projects. If you are planning to do that, think carefully about how you word that appeal.

Donations to an appeal for a specific purpose (or purposes) must be used only for that purpose (or purposes).

Include a ‘secondary purpose’

If you are fundraising for a specific purpose, think about including a secondary purpose or purposes in your appeal wording. This says how you will use donations if you raise too much or too little, or the charity cannot use the donations as intended.

Keeping donor and appeal information

Plan how you will keep donor and appeal information before you start your appeal.

Information you should keep:

• donor name, contact details, amount and date received
• how the payment was made, for example, via text or online (if you use an online platform make sure you can contact those donors if necessary)
• letters, emails or other information you collected with the donation
• your appeal literature including any changes made
• any Gift Aid you claim on donations, as you may need to contact HM Revenue and Customs if you return donations
• any conditions attached to a donation (if the donation was not given as an outright gift)

Understand your data protection responsibilities under GDPR.

You will also need this information to follow the required process, detailed in the guidance below, if you are unable to use your appeal donations as intended.

What to do if you are unable to use donations as intended

If you did not include a secondary purpose, you must take specific steps before you can use donations for new purposes. The steps required are set out in our guidance:

• using donations when you have not raised enough money or you cannot achieve your appeal purpose
• using donations when you’ve raised more than you need