The online shops pay sales commissions to TheGivingMachine™. These commissions are included in the sale price of the products and services from the shops who use this commission model to drive more sales. 75% of the commissions are then converted into donations. We then ensure that these donations are distributed to you on behalf of your supporting Givers. The remaining 25% covers the costs of running the website and distributing donation payments.

All of the participating online shops on our website have agreed to pay a commission in the form of a cash donation every time Givers shop via TheGivingMachine™ and buy a qualifying product from them.  If Givers do not access the online shop via our links on TheGivingMachine™, then the donation will not be activated and their nominated school/PTA will not benefit from the donation.

Typically, an online shop will be donating in the region of 3-4% of the total sale price. 

As an example, if a Giver purchased an item at £100 via a link on TheGivingMachine™, we would expect around £3.75 donation to be generated.  Specific donation amounts are shown next to each shop. 
Givers who use TheGivingMachine can easily generate an additional £30 -£40 a year all at no extra cost.

(Please remember that the online shops set the commissions/donations they are prepared to pay so these numbers may go up or down and donation details are shown next to each shop)

If you represent a charity or school that would like to join, simply go to our Home Page and Join for free.

It can take between 2 and 6 months or so for the monies to come through to us as most shops have a 28 day returns policy and also online shops generally specify that their payments will take between 30 and 60 days to reach us after the 28 day period, these donations are received monthly. We distribute donations TheGivingMachine has received at the end of every month.



From September 1st, 2011:
- For cheque payments, we will pay querterly for all schools and charities here the total donations received are over £25 for any school or charity, we will hold them in a balance until the next quarter.
- For BACS payments, we will pay monthly for all balances over £15 to facilitate faster payment.



Some shops are faster than others at paying their partners. Unfortunately some of the most popular ones can also be the slowest. However, once donations are showing on your Giver account, they are being tracked by both the shop and TheGivingMachine™.

We plan to use BACs transfer for all donation payments and hope to lower the payment threshold to £10.

In order to set your school to receive BACs payments we would need a short note on headed paper enclosing a blank paying-in slip sent to our Treasurer -  Jonathan Bayly, TheGivingMachine™, 14a Grange Park, Bishops Stortford, CM23 2HX.

Online Shops provide a returns policy which is why it can take up to 3 months to pay donations.  In the event that a sale is reversed the online shop can deduct a previously paid donation off the next month’s payments to TheGivingMachine™.  We will do likewise.

In the unlikely event that we cannot match a donation with a specific Giver and their account, we will investigate the transaction and use our best endeavours to allocate it correctly.

We allocate donations to whatever beneficiaries are assigned by each individual Giver at the time of the transaction with the online shop.

We are continually adding online shops to our website but some online shops change their marketing strategies and we therefore have to remove them from our site at these times.  We are also able to approach online shops if they would like to work with TheGivingMachine™ and as such we are happy to hear your suggestions.

Gift aid can be claimed when a UK tax payer donates to their charity and the charity can claim back tax paid on the income being donated. However, in our case, the monies being donated are not originated from Givers (UK taxpayers) but are sales commissions that have been earned by TheGivingMachine™. Therefore, it is TheGivingMachine™ Ltd. making the donations in accordance with the wishes of Givers and therefore donations are not eligible for Gift Aid.

Once your school has joined, you will be provided access to a number of free, downloadable and customisable materials.  These include email flyers, printable flyers, text and graphics for your newsletters as well as website.

We run 2-3 updates a week but the most comprehensive one on Friday.  We ask that you wait at least two Fridays before letting us know that a donation is missing.  It is very unusual for donations not to appear within this time period, if a donation does not appear then with a few details we are able to track the donation and get it allocated to your school or PTA.  Just contact us with the relevant details.

There is free browser toolbar which plugs into your internet browser (e.g. Firefox, Internet Explorer etc...) which places a big “Give as you Shop” button to make it easier for you to shop online. It is easy to do and we have specialist help who can help you if you have any problems. You can download it here: Download TheGivingMachine™ Toolbar.

The only details that TheGivingMachine uses are the ones you provided for your Giver account (email address, post code etc.).

When you make purchases viaTheGivingMachine, you are buying directly from the shop and TheGivingMachine does not have any involvement with that purchase or the information you provide to an online shop.

TheGivingMachine receives a data report from the online shops that enables us to match up donations to the Givers that generated them.

Please just log into your School account and then go to the Launch Activities link and you will find the details there.