When a loved one dies there are lots of things to consider when planning their final goodbye. One such consideration is the charity to request donations be made to in their name. Creating a charitable collection in memory used to be something people arranged to take place at the funeral.
In recent years the use of online donation services has increased rapidly. At Funeral Notices we noticed this change in the way people collect money for charity, noting that the number of notices we publish with online donation requests went up exponentially during the pandemic. This upward trend has continued into 2022.
The type of notice we publish has changed too. Whereas every notice used to also appear in a regional newspaper and online, we now publish an increasing number of notices to the website only. In September 2022, 11.5% of all death announcement notices published on funeral-notices.co.uk only appeared on the website and not in a newspaper. This figure is expected to rise each month moving forward.
In this blog we will take a look at an online notice that attracted thousands of people to view the notice and make a donation in memory.
£15,400 raised in memory for Sarcoma UK
When a notice is published, be it into a newspaper or online only, it appears on funeral-notices.co.uk. The only way to tell if a notice has been published into a newspaper is at the top of the notice where it says 'Published:' - in this example the notice for the late
Carole Clark was published online and linked to the Liverpool area. Anyone browsing notices in the Liverpool area would see the notice alongside the notices also published in the Liverpool Echo.
To date the notice has been viewed over 2750 times and a remarkable 87 tributes have been added in memory of Carole. The kindness of people who knew Carole is overwhelming, with more than £15,900 raised in her memory for her chosen charity,
Sarcoma UK.
The money raised is further increased by the donors choosing to add Gift Aid to their donation.
Gift Aid allows UK tax payers to request the charity claim back the tax on their donation and provides an additional 25% to the donation total. Gift Aid is an invaluable resource for charities. Online donation platforms such as ours are now the preferred method of donations to charity as they make it quick and easy to provide Gift Aid information to speed up the process of claiming Gift Aid.
On average, 74% of our donors request we add Gift Aid to their donations on funeral-notices.co.uk. 64 people chose to donate in memory of Carole, with 46 of them choosing to add Gift Aid, that's 72%. In total the friends and family of Carole Clark added over £1030 in Gift Aid, taking the total donation amount made in her name to more than £16, 500. An amazing legacy to a much missed wife, sister, aunty and friend.
Donations on our website are administered by our donation partner Donatis. As we work closely with Funeral Directors and the recently bereaved it is important to us that we work with companies who share our values and commitment to supporting people in their grief. Donatis founder Mark Robinson's background is in the funeral industry so he understands first hand what Funeral Directors and their families need.
Mark said:
"The collection in memory of Carole Clark is one of the highest we have ever seen. We have advised Sarcoma UK (the recipient charity) that we are paying them an extra £436.26 - as we are the only collector who caps their admin fee. Our fees are capped at £200 max and so the charity have benefitted even more by using us for their collection. The total in Gift Aid added by friends and family of Carole is the highest ever Gift Aid raised for any one collection. A wonderful tribute and legacy."
The Jenkins family at RSJ Funeral Directors
Many of our notices are requested by Funeral Directors on behalf of families. The notice for the late Carole Clark was arranged by Liverpool based independent Funeral Directors
RSJ Family Funeral Directors.
RSJ Funeral Directors originate from Liverpool’s oldest Independent family Funeral Service. They pride themselves on helping families as much as possible offering their services with genuine compassion.
RSJ Family Funeral Directors are an Online Partner of Funeral Notices which means they have chosen us to provide funeral notices on their own website. We also provide them with online notices to offer to anyone who does not wish to publish a notice in a newspaper, such as in the notice for Carole.
Funeral Notices Account Manager Rob Stebbing has spoken with Richard Jenkins Snr and Richard Jenkins Jnr at RSJ Family Funeral Directors about the Carole Clark notice.
Carole was a friend of Richard Jenkins Snr.
He said: "The amount raised for Sarcoma UK is amazing!
"She was held in such high esteem by her family and friends. She was only 57 when she died but a real fighter".
One of the best parts of our jobs with Funeral Notices is seeing the loving tributes added to notices.
Funeral Notices is home to more than 4.9 million notices, with new tribute pages added every day. An online notice has the ability to grow to become an everlasting tribute to a loved one.
Every notice we publish is fully interactive, dynamic and designed to support families in their grief. Online notices allow families to collect in-memory donations, receive messages of condolence, add tributes, upload unlimited photos - in memory of their loved one.
The generosity of the family and friends of Carole Clark is amazing and has made everyone involved proud of the service we work together to provide for families.
To create a notice on funeral-notices.co.uk, visit our booking site
here.
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