‘In Memory’ software increases Gift Aid Value by 80 percent finds Cloudberry
Cloudberry Funeral Management Solutions ‘InMemory’ donations management system is celebrating another year of significant increase in transactions.
The cloud-based donation management system managed 19,349 individual donation entries via its funeral director partners from the January 1 2016 to December 31 2016. This is an increase of almost 20 percent based on the same period last year.
Since the system started in 2013, funeral directors have processed a total of 51,535 donations totalling £2,281,658 via the system.
During 2016, donations made online almost matched cash donations (21 percent vs 20 percent of the total transactions) showing a big change in the way people interact and deal with funds.
The donations raised a total of £924,246 for charities across the UK. Gift Aid was added to 80.3 percent of the online card transactions, resulting in the chosen charities benefitting from receiving and extra £35,378. The average donation across all forms of giving in 2016 was £47.77 an increase of 9.9 percent in the year.
Cheque donations with Gift Aid added were at an all-time low at 4.5 percent, whilst 8.6 percent of donors making a cash donation added Gift Aid. The average percentage of people adding Gift Aid online with a credit or debit card across each funeral director was encouragingly consistent, the lowest being 72.4 percent and the highest 88.5 percent.
As Cloudberry Funeral Management Solutions embarks on 2017, Mark Robinson said: “In Memory is now entering its fourth year and we are delighted to announce the overall figures on behalf of our funeral director customers.
“Whilst traditional donations made via cheques and cash continue to dominate, online transactions are rapidly growing and with 80 percent+ of card donors choosing to add Gift Aid, it’s a great way for families to ensure that donations to charities in memory of their loved ones are maximised.
“The ability of our system to manage every type of donation leaving the funeral director in complete control makes this software a compelling choice for many funeral directors. It integrates seamlessly with each funeral director’s website, so that they benefit from more traffic and essentially more awareness.
“We have continued to invest in our system and during the year released a new version which has been very well received by all.
“We remain totally committed to not deducting any fee from donors’ donations and are please to say that our small charge to the funeral director of £6 per donation profile added remains fixed for 2017.”
Tonks Brothers Funeral Directors
Ben Tonks from Tonks Brothers Funeral Directors said: “By being pro-active within our community and offering this extra service, we have also found that this is helping to raise awareness of our services locally and it has definitely helped our business to continue to grow (and we have the time to deal with that growth).
“One of the best bits of functionality is that Gift Aid is added to each donation by simply checking a box – no more filling out and signing forms – so the total raised for each charity increases instantly by 25 percent!
“We really like the fact that nothing is deducted from any donation. The £6 fee that Cloudberry charge per funeral is small given the quality of the software, and we even choose to absorb the card processing fees, as we were saving so much time ourselves. This means that every last penny goes direct to the charity – many of whom are local and our families raise the absolute maximum in memory of their loved ones.”
