“As a small grassroots charity, grants received from major trusts, foundations and charities are vital to our work with vulnerable young people. The funding environment is increasingly competitive, anything that deters major donors from contributing is surely counter intuitive. We are actively trying to engage new donors and philanthropists to become less reliant on public sources of funding. It feels like we are being squeezed from all sides at a time when the young people we are trying to help need us most.”

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Christian Aid:

“We are very concerned at the potential impact of the Chancellor’s proposed cap on tax relief for charitable donations above £50,000. Following the cap the same net donation from a high level donor will fund less work for charities than in the current regime.  We expect this change to significantly reduce the philanthropist funded work Christian Aid can undertake to eradicate poverty. We urge the Chancellor to look again at his decision based on the impact it would have.”

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Ruth Whitbread, Fundraising and Business Development Manager at Care for the Carers:

“Smaller, local charities like ours are keen to engage the support of philanthropists and major donors who might live locally and want to make an impact in their community.  This is a huge disincentive for them to make significant donations that might mean that we could offer additional services at particularly challenging times for carers and the people they care for.”

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Peter Rowbottom, Head of Fundraising at Arthritis Care:

“Arthritis Care receives no government funding. There are 10 million people across the UK with some form of arthritis. Arthritis Care is there to help and support them and their families. We can’t do that without public donations. Come on George, help organisations like us – don’t hinder us. Encourage philanthropy don’t suffocate it. Simple.”

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Jeremy Paine, Director of Fundraising and Marketing, on behalf of Shooting Star CHASE Children’s hospice:

“Major donors are a vital income stream for us. Suppressing their giving will limit the care and support we can provide to life-limited children and their families.”

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The National Trust has several major donors but they, like the hundreds of thousands of people who donate small amounts to our appeals every year, are motivated by the cause they give to.”

Maxine Trotter, director of fundraising at Help the Hospices:

“Income generated through giving is vital to sustain and develop hospice and palliative care to meet growing and changing demand for services.”

“As a sector we are concerned about the impact the tax cap will have on charitable income. Hospices are strongly rooted in their local communities and work effectively and innovatively to raise more than £582 million every year from local people and businesses. Support from major donors helps hospices develop their services and make a difference to people at the end of life and their families and carers.”

Shaun O’Leary, Chief Executive St Catherine’s Hospice:

“Our community nursing service ensures that local people with terminal illnesses have the opportunity to be cared for in the comfort and familiarity of their own homes. Mindful of the current uncertain climate around the funding of end of life care, we are concerned that the new ‘philanthropy tax’ may discourage large gifts which have been so important in securing our community nursing service.”

Read the full press statement on the Help the Hospices website

This is a post by Laura Willoughby MBE, the new Director of the National Campaign for the Arts.

George Osborne’s tax relief cap is a bit of a double whammy for the arts world. It will impact on current large donations as well as hampering efforts to use the incentives in last year’s budget.

The arts and heritage sectors are recipients of donations from a greater number of higher rate tax payers than many charitable activities. It is estimated that at least £80 million worth of regular donations from our largest organisations could be lost. That is a lot for the arts sector to make up before we can even look to replace public funding streams and build up new ones. It feels like we have had our hands tied behind our back before we have even begun.

That is why the National Campaign for the Arts has joined the Give It Back George Campaign and why the thousands of theatre, opera and dance companies, orchestras, concert halls, galleries and museums that make up the UK arts sector have added their voice to those of the many charities and universities speaking out against the inclusion of charitable donations in the proposed cap on personal tax relief.

Like everyone, we fully accept the need to ensure that the most wealthy in our society do not avoid their tax obligations, but this proposal would cause enormous damage to Britain’s arts and heritage. Damage that will not be confined to the larger institutions in London but will affect arts and heritage organisations in all parts of the UK.

“We object strongly to the attempt to portray those philanthropists who give so generously of their time and money to support Britain’s arts and heritage as tax avoiders.” says Mark Pemberton, Director of the Association of British Orchestras in a letter co-signed with other nationwide arts organisations to George Osborne this week.

This gives out all the wrong signals, and will have a direct impact on levels of individual giving at a time when arts organisations and museums are coping with reductions in public investment from national and local government. It would be ironic, after the positive steps taken in the last Budget to provide incentives for philanthropy, if DCMS’s flagship policy of endowment building and the generation of a US-style culture of giving is fatally undermined. Particularly as Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund are about to announce the successful applicants to the £55 million Catalyst: endowments Fund.

Laura Willoughby MBE, Director, National Campaign for the Arts

(The letter to the Chancellor was signed by
Laura Willoughby MBE, Director, National Campaign for the Arts
Julian Bird, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre and Theatrical Management Association
Trevor Horsewood, Co-ordinator, Visual Arts and Galleries Association
Charlotte Jones, Chief Executive, Independent Theatre Council
Caroline Miller, Director, Dance UK
Mark Pemberton, Director, Association of British Orchestras
Mark Taylor, Chief Executive, Museums Association)

“Recent headlines about the so called ‘charity tax’ have focussed on the bigger individual donations – big, one-off donations, which are usually the preserve of universities, museums and the very biggest charities in the UK. There’s also been lots of talk about tax avoidance tactics of the super rich, but this debate so far has largely overlooked two important points that could adversely affect Welsh charities.

Smaller individual gifts could get snared up in the cap on tax relief – if over time these exceed the tax limit, then donors still won’t get the tax relief, so charities in Wales receiving smaller donations are likely to be impacted.

The majority of the very big donations that are made go to grant making foundations and the change in tax on donations could prevent the very big donors from adding to these pots, which will in turn mean less money for charities later down the line.

We are all feeling the pinch at the moment and there is less money to go around. This is why it is particularly important for government to be encouraging people to give to charities, rather than impose restrictions on donations.”

Richard Nicholls, Director of Income Resources at Age Cymru

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