The Justgiving Blog

Terms and conditions update: can donors dictate how charities spend their donations?

The Asian Tsunami brought the issue of earmarking of funds on the Justgiving site into sharp focus. Many people created Justgiving fundraising pages in aid of the victims of the disaster, largely without the prior knowledge of the charities concerned, and questions were raised from both parties about the correct allocation of these funds.  New pages are created every day in which people campaign for a particular cause or appeal, effectively placing an obligation on the charity to allocate the money raised to that particular purpose.

This is why we have amended our terms and conditions to make it clear to our individual users that their chosen recipient charity reserves the right to use the funds raised through our site for its general purposes, not a particular appeal. Charities can of course choose to ‘earmark’ some funds raised through a particular fundraising page to a specific appeal if it so chooses, but this general rule resolves the confusion surrounding this issue.

This information is available to our users in our terms and conditions (which can be found via a link on the bottom of each page on www.justgiving.com). It is also brought to the attention of those who are building a fundraising page. If in doubt, they are invited to call the charity for further information.

Is earmarking a concern for your charity? If you are a charity supporter, do you have view on this issue? Please email us & let us know your thoughts.