Shoppers could also be asked to make donations whenever they make a purchase, on the High Street or online. The proposals were published yesterday as part of a Government consultation designed to encourage us to give more time and money to charitable causes, and remind us of the 'warm glow' that helping others can produce.
A study by the Charities Aid Foundation published earlier this month found that about 56 percent of British adults regularly give to charity, donating an estimated 10.6 billion pounds each year.
However, while the British public are among the most generous in Europe, the country lags far behind the United States, where people donate the equivalent of 1.7 percent of gross domestic product. In the UK, the public gives the equivalent of 0.7 percent of the country's GDP.
Ministers said they hope to encourage more people to give money regularly, and greater numbers to offer their time to help charities and organisations carrying out work in local communities.
While Britons are generous with their money compared with those in almost all other countries, they rank only 29th for volunteering – spending 17 times more hours watching TV. That is quite shocking guys!
John Low, chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, said: "Britain is a generous nation with a long history of supporting those most in need.
"This Green Paper is welcome as it seeks to kickstart some new initiatives which will make it easy to give and to build up existing ones.
"However, there is more that could be done to make it easier to take advantage of tax incentives, including reforming the Gift Aid system, improving access to Give As You Earn and encouraging all types of tax-effective giving.
"Every year around £750 million is lost in unclaimed Gift Aid alone and a third of UK adults don't know that they can give to charity tax-effectively.
"Many countries use Britain as an aspirational role model when developing their charity sectors but there are still lessons our Government can learn from the likes of the US, where tax relief is no more generous than ours but much simpler to understand, resulting in a higher up-take level."
They do mean well and we can't argue with that...although, I do agree that there could be better ways to go about this. The Government needs to be more encouraging and I think that they need to set an example first.
I am strong believer in giving to Charity (as you may have guessed), but when you are able. I think more and more people find that they are able to give more when they know they can afford to do so and over the past few years, despite the recession, more people are giving.
A prompt occasionally is a good thing; however, when people are feeling the financial pinch, giving to charity is bound to drop? Right?
There are many opinions on this and once again Cameron could find that he is digging an even bigger hole; people could take this is as positive encouragement to do something or they could just react negatively. Especially because it can be seen as unfair in terms of pushing people into giving rather than leaving it to people's own discretion.
I have spoken to a few people I know who already give monthly donations and support various Charities and their views are quite interesting; many are actually discouraged by this 'Charity Plan' as they don't like being told what to do by Politicians. Hmm!
What are your views?
Could this work?
Much love,
Anokhi
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