In the past, charity collections typically consisted of a fundraiser with a bucket collecting notes and coins. However, in the modern world this scenario is less and less relevant. 

Payments UK has published data suggesting that the use of cash only made up around 24% of all transactions in 2015. This figure is predicted to fall further, reaching just 15% of all transactions by 2025. Furthermore, YouGov research looked into the amount of cash that the average person carries, with the data showing that 70% carry less than £30, while 60% carry less than £20. These numbers hold true across the entire United Kingdom, showing an overall fall in the popularity of cash.

In parallel to the demise of cash, the number of contactless payments is increasing rapidly. Research predicts a 900% increase in contactless payments - taking them from 911 million transactions in 2015 to 10.1 billion transactions in the year 2025 -meaning that contactless would represent almost half (47%) of all debit card transactions by 2025.

The public's general lack of cash has had an effect on many organisations' fundraising efforts; however, it doesn't have to be a negative effect. In traditional fundraising, although cash is collected no additional information is gathered, which is thought to be a missed opportunity.

Suppose a fundraiser collects £20, there is no way to find out whether one person donated this, or whether it was two, three or even 20 people. Other questions arise, such as how much it costs to move the money from the bucket through an accounting process and into the bank; how the organisation deals with donations made in foreign currencies; and whether schemes such as Gift Aid, or the Government's Gift Aid Small Donation Scheme, have been applied to any or all of the cash donations.

On top of this, cash donations make it impossible for the organisation to stay in touch with the donor. However, digital fundraising provides a solution to these issues. Digital fundraising has shown that more Gift Aid is claimed, donors can opt to give their contact details to the organisation and best of all, digital donations have been found to be larger on average than cash donations. 

Contactless, text and web constitute digital fundraising, and there has been research into which channel works best in different contexts. Passing crowds in high-traffic areas are best captured by offering contactless donations; events that have a longer duration, such as lunches and dinners, suit a mobile-web platform, as donors have more time to enter their details and to add their Gift Aid supplement; and finally, talks and lectures are best suited to text donations.

National Funding Scheme's DONATETM provides charities with a range of mobile fundraising products and services to maximise fundraising campaigns.

Follow National Funding Scheme on: Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn