How your pay can work for a good cause

Since its launch in late 2011 payroll giving, which allows you to donate to charity directly from your wages, has quietly raised close to £95,000.
With fewer than 120 of the University’s approximately 9,000 staff signed up to it, the scheme has plenty of room to grow.
But it is already allowing charities large and small to benefit from employees’ generosity – and is providing staff with a tax efficient way to give.
The organisations which receive monthly donations range from world-leading research charities like the Meningitis Research Foundation, to local bodies like homelessness group Cambridge Cyrenians. Many staff use the scheme to support charities that have close personal links.
Nicola Fouhy, Employee Relations and Reward Analyst at the University’s Human Resources Division, helped implement payroll giving at the University and was one of its very first users.
She says: “Our starting point was as a response to a growing number of employee requests for the scheme, especially those arriving here from organisations which did have the scheme. We also saw this as a way of supporting the University’s reputation as a socially responsible employer.
“Finally it is a way to support employees wishing to make tax effective charitable donations. This can be particularly applicable to high earners but also to anyone on the cusp of a tax bracket.”
Fouhy gives to Cancer Research UK as the disease touches many people’s lives, and because her father battled prostate cancer three years ago.
“The success of my father’s treatment was largely due to breakthroughs in cancer research and pioneering technology available at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, which would not have been possible without funding.
“The University scheme makes donating cost effective and convenient. The system allows you to sign up online and you can see how much is going out each month on your payslip.”
A longer version of this feature was published in the Michaelmas Term Staff Newsletter.