WHO ARE WE?

We are a giving collective who donate and pool a small, regular amount of our income to a selection of charitable causes. By donating as a group we can give at lot more and also keep a direct and meaningful relationship with each cause.

WHAT IS ONE PERCENT SCHEME ALL ABOUT?

We aim to provide the maximum benefit from the money we donate. In doing so we hope to raise awareness of the work carried out by the kind of small and very effective charities that don’t normally get in the mainstream press.

We want to cultivate our own culture of charitable giving that moves away from ‘blind donations’ by encouraging awareness of a range of interesting domestic and worldwide initiatives. We want to facilitate a degree of involvement in the process of giving, the extent of which is entirely up to you and can be anything from simply voting in the elections to helping administer our partnership with one of the causes we support.  There are often also opportunities to directly volunteer with our charities if you have more time to give.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

  • Members pool together a minimum of 1% of their post tax income which is then distributed to a range of good causes they choose every year.  We don’t check whether the amount is exactly 1% of course – this is all done on trust!
  • 100% of the funding donated by members is distributed to charities.  OnePercent Scheme has no paid staff and no overheads that are met from member donations.
  • We have two funding pots.  The ‘core’ support pot and the one off ‘gift aid’ pot.
  • We support three ‘core’ charities every year and we suppport the same cause for three years.  These usually include a balance of both international and UK based causes.  This allows us to develop a longer term relationship with a particular charity and therefore improve our chances of achieving real change.
  • As it’s name would suggest the ‘gift aid‘ pot is formed from the rebate we get from the taxman after claiming gift aid on donations.  This is paid in arrears and we use this pot to distribute smaller one off grants to good causes.   We generally support 3-4 charities each year with a one-off grant.
  • ‘Causes’ are nominated by members and determined by trustees. In our experience, helping grassroots organisations and smaller projects that are doing great work tackling specific issues but which lack the resources and expertise to fundraise can be very rewarding.  We tend to look particularly for those charities where our funding may make a real difference (i.e. not those organisations with huge income already).  In line with our charitable objectives we tend to focus on humanitarian development and won’t tend to support explictly nature or conservation based causes unless they come with a very strong human interest angle.
  • In addition to your money making a really significant and tangible difference to their work, supporting smaller groups makes it possible to build genuine partnerships, bridging the gap between donors and beneficiaries.  We have at least one annual meeting (generally in London or Bristol) where members can meet trustees and hear presentations from the charities we are supporting that year.
  • OPS is about more than just giving. We have a better chance of tackling long term issues if more people feel more trusting of and meaningfully engaged with charity.

WHY DON’T I JUST GIVE DIRECTLY?

One of the best thing about OPS is that members can leverage other members donations.  If you wanted to give 1% of your salary to a particular cause you felt stongly about it will no doubt make a difference.  But 1% of many people’s salaries will clearly achieve much more.  Not all members nominate causes each year so the chances of a cause you feel passionate about getting more funding than you could give alone are quite high.  In addition you get exposed to many other people’s interests and passions and the charities they put forward.  Most members say they find out about causes and worldwide issues that they had no idea about through OPS.

WHAT ARE THE OBJECTIVES OF ONE PERCENT SCHEME?

Our charitable objectives as stated in our constitution are as follows:

  • The relief of poverty
  • The advancement of education
  • The relief of the physically or mentally disabled in order to help meet their needs
  • The relief of poverty and financial hardship
  • The relief of unemployment
  • The preservation and protection of health
  • The preservation and conservation of the environment

These objects shall be furthered by supporting initiatives that are approved by the membership of the charity by providing financial assistance, human resources or other such assistance as seen necessary.

You can find more details on the Charity Commission website. Our charity registration number is 1116608.