Terms of Use

Stewardship Giving Accounts

Thank you for giving with Stewardship. The following links will guide you through the conditions of use for our services, helpful explanations of key terms we use and other general guidance to help you fully understand how we operate our giving accounts.

Contents:

5. The Online Service: Terms of Use

6. Other General Terms

7. Helpful Explanations

8. General Guidance for Giving Accounts

9. Guidance for Specific Account Types

1. About Us

Stewardship is the operating name of Stewardship Services (UKET) Limited. We are a registered charity (number 234714) and a company limited by guarantee, registered in England (number 90305).

Our registered office and main operating address is:

1 Lamb’s Passage,
London
EC1Y 8AB

If you have any questions or comments with regards to the information on this page, please get in touch with the Giving Services team on 020 8502 8560 or by email to [email protected]

2. About These Terms

This page contains the terms and conditions applicable to Givers who open a Giving Account with Stewardship. By opening a Giving Account with us, you agree to and undertake to comply with the obligations set out in these terms and conditions.

If there is a difference between a provision in these terms and conditions and any information in our website, application forms, brochures or any other documents or terms relevant to or in respect of your relationship with Stewardship, the provision in these terms and conditions is the one that shall apply.

For your own benefit and protection, we would recommend that you carefully read these pages. We also recommend that you print and keep this page in a safe place, as you may wish to refer to it in the future; although you can access this at any time on our website.

If there is anything that you do not fully understand, please ask for further information or seek professional advice or guidance.

3. The Legal Pieces

Terms of Use

Stewardship runs a donor advised fund, which is a type of charitable giving vehicle which makes it tax-effective and easy to give. As such, all funds Gifted by you into a Stewardship Giving Account are Stewardship’s and become part of our charitable funds. You will have online access to your Giving Account and from there you can make requests to make Donations to Recipients. Funds that have been Gifted to Stewardship are irrevocable, outright Gifts from you to us and cannot be returned to you.
All Donations paid from your Giving Account to Recipients are made at the discretion of Stewardship’s trustees. Stewardship reserves the right to not make a Grant to a particular Recipient. These situations are rare but as a Christian charity an example would be that we cannot give to a charity advancing another faith.
As Stewardship is a registered charity, neither a Giver nor any of their Close Relatives can derive any benefit from any Gifts or any income deriving from the Gifts that have been received by Stewardship.
Stewardship will be able to deduct from your Giving Account all costs and expenses that it incurs in connection with the operation and administration of your Giving Account. Information in relation to these costs can be found at stewardship.org.uk/pricing and may be subject to change.
Stewardship may (at its discretion) invest any amounts Gifted into a Giving Account and awaiting distribution. Any resulting investment income (by way of capital growth or investment returns) shall belong to Stewardship and form part of its general charitable funds. For Donor Advised Funds and Philanthropy Funds, Givers have the option of requesting that all or part of their balance in their Giving Account is invested in certain investment options. Any resulting investment income will belong to Stewardship and form part of its charitable funds, a portion of which will be credited to your Giving Account as per our current rates, which may be subject to change.
If you are eligible, to enable us to reclaim tax on your charitable giving, you will need to complete a Stewardship Gift Aid declaration. The tax reclaimed will then be added to your account.

4. Privacy

Prior to making a Gift, please make sure to review our privacy notice which is available at stewardship.org.uk/privacy.

5. The Online Service: Terms of Use

Using the Online Service

To help you manage your giving, we will provide you with access to your Giving Account online (as long as we have a valid email address for you).

We will provide you with login details to get you started, but for security reasons, you may be asked to change these details when you log into your account for the first time. Don’t forget to keep your login details secure and confidential.

We have certain procedures in place to help protect you against unauthorised access to your account, but if you become aware of unauthorised access, or if you think your login details may have been compromised, we recommend that you change them immediately or contact us on 020 8502 8560.

Please note that you are responsible for the accuracy and genuineness of all instructions and information sent to us, from login to log-off. This means that you must ensure that all instructions and information are carefully checked before being sent to us.

From time to time, it may be necessary for us to restrict access to the Online Service, for example when we need to do some maintenance to the site, or to make improvements or changes. We will always do our best to notify you if the service becomes unavailable for any reason, but we reserve the right to withdraw or amend this service without notice and will not be liable if access to the service is unavailable at any time, or for any period.

When using our Online Service, you must comply with our Acceptable Use policy below. Please note that accessing any part of the Online Services constitutes your agreement to be bound by these Online Services Terms of Use, as well as our privacy policy, available at stewardship.org.uk/privacy, which may be updated from time to time.

Intellectual Property Rights

The data and information you can access using the Online Service is protected by copyright, database and other laws relating to intellectual property. All rights in relation to such data and information and the design of the system (including but not limited to the organisation and layout of our Online Service and the underlying software code) are reserved by ourselves.

You may access, print off and download such data and information provided they are only used for your own information purposes.

We grant you this permission as a personal, non-exclusive and non-transferable download licence, which is given on the basis that no documents or related graphics on the Online Service are modified in any way, and copyright and trade mark notices appear in all copies.

Other than expressly provided in these terms, you may not otherwise access, download, copy or use any of the data or information on the Online Service, and under no circumstances may you sell it or otherwise seek to turn it to account, directly or indirectly. Similarly, except as provided in these terms, no part of the Online Service may be reproduced or stored in any other website or included in any public or private electronic retrieval system or service without our consent.

Information provided by third parties

Information about Recipients may be provided by them and we disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on such information.

Where we provide links to other sites and resources provided by Recipients or other third parties, these links are provided for your information only. We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources, and accept no responsibility for them or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.

Our liability

Whilst we will endeavour to ensure that information provided by us is up to date and accurate we do not provide any guarantees, conditions, warranties or other terms in this regard (including, without limitation, the conditions implied by law of satisfactory quality, fitness for purpose and the use of reasonable care and skill), in each case to the maximum extent permitted by law.

To the extent permitted by law, Stewardship (and each of its trustees, officers, directors, employees, contractors, shareholders or agents) hereby expressly exclude:

All conditions, warranties and other terms which might otherwise be implied by statute, common law or the law of equity.

Any liability for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage incurred by any user in connection with using the Online Service or in connection with the use, inability to use or results of the use of information provided about their Giving Accounts or other material including, without limitation, any liability for:

loss of income or revenue;
loss of business;
loss of profits or contracts;
loss of anticipated savings;
loss of data;
loss of goodwill;
loss or damage caused by viruses that may infect your computer equipment, software, data or other property on account of your access to, use of, or browsing the Online Service or your downloading of any material from the Online Service or from any websites linked (directly or indirectly) to the Online Service; or
wasted management or office time; and
for any other loss or damage of any kind, however arising and whether caused by tort (including negligence), breach of contract or otherwise, even if foreseeable.

We will adopt security and anti-virus practices routinely used and adopted as a matter of good practice by other similar charities in the UK. Nevertheless, it is important you understand that every internet site, every computer that connects to the internet and all internet communication is susceptible to attack by computer hackers and the ever-increasing variety and sophistication of computer viruses. Stewardship will do all it reasonably can to protect the Online Service, but it cannot be held responsible for any losses attributable to your own failure to take precautions to prevent interception of or interference with any communications including failure to use and/or keep up to date firewalls and anti-virus software on your own computers.

This does not affect our liability for death or personal injury arising from our negligence (as defined in the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977) nor our liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation or misrepresentation as to a fundamental matter nor any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

Information about you and access to your Account online

We process information about you in accordance with our Privacy Notice, which is available at stewardship.org.uk/privacy. In general, we process information about you where it is necessary to do so in order to administer your giving account.

Providing information

Whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to provide information about yourself or your organisation you must comply with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use policy. You warrant that any such contribution does comply with those standards, and you indemnify us for any breach of that warranty or for any claim from any other party that the information provided by you constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy. In the event of such a claim by a third party and in line with our Privacy Notice we reserve the right to pass your details to the third party.

Other than personally identifiable information, which is covered under our Privacy Notice, any material you upload or information you provide will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary, and we will have the right to use, copy, distribute and disclose to third parties any such material for any purpose. We will not be responsible, or liable to any third party, for the content or accuracy of any information or material provided by you or any other user whilst accessing your Giving Account online.

We have the right to remove any information or material which you have provided if, in our opinion, such information or material does not comply with our Acceptable Use policy.

Viruses, hacking and other offences

We will report and pursue to the full extent of the law any unlawful or malicious activity, including unauthorised access to data, introduction of malicious software, or disruption of service to the appropriate authorities under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

Linking to the Online Service

You may link to our Online Service, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it, but you must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.

You must not establish a link from any website that is not both operated by you or on your behalf and controlled by you. You must not remove, distort or otherwise alter the size or appearance of any graphics or logos, or create a frame or any other browser or border environment around that website.

Our facility must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any of our facilities other than the Online Service. We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice. The website from which you are linking must comply in all respects with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use policy.

Helpdesk

We will provide assistance and support to Users during standard office hours through our Helpdesk. However, we will not be liable for any loss resulting from interruption to this service.

5.1 Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use policy sets out the terms between you and us under which you may use the Online Service. This Acceptable Use policy applies to all users of the Online Service.

Prohibited uses

You may only access the Online Service for lawful purposes. You may not access, post or transmit to your Giving Account or the Online Service:

In any way that breaches any applicable (civil or criminal) local, national or international law or regulation;
In any way that is unlawful or fraudulent, or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect;
For the purpose of harming or attempting to harm minors or any other person in any way, or to cause any infringement on the rights of any other person;
To send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which does not comply with our content standards;
To transmit or procure the sending of any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam); or
In any way that is technically harmful, including without limitation to transmit any data, send or upload any material that contains (without limitation) viruses, trojan horses, worms, time-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware.

You also agree:

Not to reproduce, duplicate, copy or re-sell any part of our system in contravention of the provisions of our Terms of Use;

Not to access without authority, interfere with, damage or disrupt:
- any part of the system;
- any equipment or network on which the system is stored;
- any equipment or network or software owned or used by any third party; and

Not to take any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our website or related infrastructure.

Content standards

These content standards apply to any and all material which you contribute to the Online Service and to any interactive services associated with it (including but not limited to the Online Service messaging facility between Givers and Recipients). You must comply with the spirit of the following standards as well as the letter. The standards apply to each part of any contribution as well as to its whole. Contributions must:

Be accurate (where they state facts);
Comply with applicable law in the UK and in any country from which they are posted;

Contributions must not:

Contain any material which is threatening or defamatory of any person;
Contain any material which is obscene, offensive, hateful, blasphemous, inflammatory or prejudicial to the administration of civil or criminal justice;
Contain sexually explicit material;
Promote violence;
Promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age;
Infringe any copyright, database right, trade mark or privacy rights of any other person;
Be likely to deceive any person;
Be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence;
Promote conduct that would be considered a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise be contrary to the law of or infringe the rights of any third party, in the UK or any other country in the world;
Harass or annoy any other person;
Be used to impersonate any person or organisation, or to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person or organisation;
Give the impression that they emanate from us, if this is not the case;
Advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act such as copyright infringement or computer misuse.

Suspension and termination

We will determine, in our discretion, whether there has been a breach of our Acceptable Use policy through your use of the Online Service. When a breach of this policy has occurred, we may take such action as we deem appropriate.

Failure to comply with our Acceptable Use policy constitutes a material breach of the Terms of using the Online Service and may result in our taking all or any of the following actions (which may include but are not limited to):

Immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use the Online Service;
Immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any posting or material uploaded by you;
Legal proceedings against you for reimbursement of all costs (including, but not limited to, reasonable administrative and legal costs) resulting from the breach;
Closing your Giving Account;
Further legal action against you;
Disclosure of such information to law enforcement authorities as we consider reasonably necessary.

We will not accept liability for any costs, damages or expenses incurred by you as a result of actions taken by us in response to breaches of this Acceptable Use policy. The responses described in this policy are not limited, and we may take any other action we reasonably deem appropriate.

6. Other General Terms

Stewardship may act upon requests and information that it believes in good faith have been made by you (or an Authorised User).
Stewardship may provide general guidance about charitable giving for information purposes only. We do not offer tax, legal or investment advice and you are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified professional on your specific situation.
As all amounts in your Giving Account are owned by Stewardship, we owe no duty of care to you in relation to any Gifts or income in your Giving Account under our Terms of Use or in law, and as such (subject to the following paragraph) Stewardship will not be liable to you for any loss, costs, damages or expenses. Any duty of care that Stewardship owes in relation to amounts in your Giving Account are owed to the charitable beneficiaries of Stewardship.
Nothing in our Terms of Use limits or excludes Stewardship’s liability for death or personal injury resulting from our negligence or any damage or liability incurred by you as a result of fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation by Stewardship or its trustees, or for any matters for which the limitation or exclusion of liability is prohibited by law.
To the extent that our liability is not lawfully excluded by our Terms of Use, our total liability to you in contract, tort (including negligence or breach of statutory duty), misrepresentation, restitution or otherwise arising in connection with the performance, or contemplated performance or failure to perform under or in respect of these terms of use shall be limited to the amount deducted from your Giving Account in order to pay our charges, costs, contributions or expenses during the year in which the liability arose.
If Stewardship delays in exercising or fails to exercise a right or remedy under or in connection with these terms of use, this shall not constitute a waiver of, or prevent or restrict future exercise of, that or any other right or remedy we may have. Similarly the single or partial exercise of a right or remedy shall not prevent or restrict the further exercise of that or any other right or remedy.
If any term of our Terms of Use is found by any court or body or authority of competent jurisdiction to be illegal, unlawful, void or unenforceable, such term shall be deemed to be severed from these terms of use and this shall not affect the remainder of these terms of use which shall continue in full force and effect.
Our Terms of Use (and any non-contractual obligations arising out of or in connection with them) are governed by English law and are binding upon both you and upon Stewardship (and each of our successors, permitted assigns and permitted transferees).
Each of us agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales in relation to any action, proceeding, claim, dispute or difference arising out of your Giving Account or otherwise in connection with your Giving Account.
Our Terms of Use may be varied by Stewardship from time to time and where possible, we will always notify you in advance of any changes.
As well as our charges, we may be required to deduct amounts from your Giving Account which may be required to be paid to HMRC for any reason in relation to your Giving Account (including, without limitation, costs caused by any breaches of any requirements, including the ‘donor benefits rules’, which apply to Gift Aid).

7. Helpful Explanations

18-25 Account: A Giving Account specifically for those aged 18 to 25.
Anonymous: Givers can ask to remain anonymous when making a Donation to a Recipient which means we will not provide Giver details to the Recipient.
Available funds: The balance on a Giving Account with Stewardship is referred to as available funds i.e. the net of cleared Gifts in less Donations paid out.
Close Relatives: When a Giver requests Donations from their Giving Account to an individual Recipient, there are certain tax and charity rules that apply to how the Recipient can use these funds, if the Giver is a Close Relative of the Recipient (see section 3.6 of General Guidance - Giving Accounts).
Corporate Giving Account: A Giving Account specifically for limited companies.
Donation: This is the payment from a Giving Account to a Recipient account in response to a Giver’s Donation request. In our new look Giving Account this is referred to as a 'Gift'.
Donor Advised Fund (formerly known as a Gold Account): A type of Giving Account for Givers who wish to give £25,000 or more in a year.
Eligibility of Recipients: We need to determine whether the work of a Recipient i.e. church, charity or individual continues to be eligible to receive Grants from us. We do this at the outset when a Recipient completes an application and at other times to verify their continued eligibility.
Gift: An irrevocable, outright gift of money or other financial assets by a Giver to Stewardship. Gifts are made into the Giver's Giving Account. Once made, a Gift to Stewardship forms part of our charitable funds and cannot be returned to the Giver. In our new look Giving Account, this is referred to as a 'top-up'.
Gift Aid declaration: Where a Giver is eligible and has completed a Gift Aid declaration, we reclaim tax on their Gifts from HMRC under the Gift Aid scheme.
give.net: give.net is Stewardship’s online fundraising website. It provides a space for individuals to create and share their own fundraising pages, for full-time Christian workers to raise financial support online, and for churches and charities to create secure donation and fundraising pages.
Giver: A giver (also known as donor) is an individual or organisation who makes a Gift to Stewardship.
Giving Account: Givers are provided with a Giving Account to help manage their giving.
Grant: When a Donation is made to a Recipient account, funds accrue and at an agreed frequency, a bulk payment is made by Stewardship to the Recipient’s bank account. We call this payment a grant.
HMRC: HM Revenue & Customs.
Legacy Giving Account: A Giving Account specifically for those who wish to make a legacy Gift to Stewardship in their will, or for those who wish to complete an Expression of Wishes for their distribution requests in the event of their death.
Linked Gifts: When a Giver makes a Gift into their account, they can ask us to automatically Donate the Gift and the Gift Aid to a Recipient. This is referred to as a linked gift.
Living costs: In respect of the “Close Relative” rules for charity and tax purposes (section 3.6 of General Guidance - Giving Accounts), living costs are defined as: accommodation costs, food and other general living expenses.
Ministry expenses: In respect of the “Close Relative” rules for charity and tax purposes (see section 3.6 of General Guidance - Giving Accounts), ministry expenses are defined as: the cost of equipment, training, materials, travel for ministry purposes and other facilities relating directly to a Recipient’s ministry work.
Online Service: Online access to your Giving Account and give.net.
Philanthropy Fund: A type of Giving Account for Givers wishing to establish a fund of £500,000 or more.
Recipient: Those receiving Grants from Stewardship (as funded from Gifts from Givers) are called recipients. Examples are a charity, a charitable project, a church, a Christian worker or a Bible College student.
Recipient account: In order to facilitate the distribution of Grants, we set up an account for each Recipient. This also enables the Recipient to view the individual Donations made into their account as well as the accumulation of these Donations into Grants paid to them by Stewardship.
Reclaimed tax: This is the tax reclaimed from HMRC under the Gift Aid scheme.
Users: a) Primary user - An individual who sets up a Giving Account with us is the Primary User (or account holder) of that account. b) Authorised user(s) - A person(s) (not the Primary user) who has been authorised to help manage a Giving Account.

8. General Guidance: Giving Accounts

Whether you want to organise your personal giving, or you’re a company looking for a more flexible way to give to the things you care about, our Giving Account is the ultimate way to organise your giving in a simple, convenient way.

The following information is relevant for all our Giving Accounts and there is also additional information about specific account types in the sections that follow.

8.1 Putting money into your account

You can put money into your Giving Account at any time, either regularly or with one-off Gifts. The Gift will be credited to the balance of your Giving Account as soon as cleared funds have been received in Stewardship’s bank account. When you make a Gift into your account, depending on how you choose to credit your account, you can request that a Donation is made to a Recipient, with or without any reclaimed tax, as soon as the Gift has cleared. Adding the Gift Aid to the Donation is called a Linked Gift.

Direct Debit

The simplest way to credit your account is to set up a Direct Debit from your bank account. You can set up your Direct Debit Instruction securely online, or you can contact us for a paper form and once in place, you can choose the date and the frequency of one off or regular gifts to suit your circumstances. With a Direct Debit you always stay in control, because any changes are initiated by you. And in the unlikely event that things do go wrong, you’re protected by the Direct Debit guarantee scheme. Once the Direct Debit is set up, you can quickly arrange gifts online, or contact us by phone, email or letter.

Debit/Credit Card

You can also use your debit or credit card online to make a one-off Gift into your Giving Account. We cannot accept debit or credit card Gifts by phone. For your protection and to guard against fraud the online process may include additional security checks by card providers. Please note that if the records we hold for you are not full and complete, your card transactions may not pass all validation checks.

Cheque

If you don’t have online access, you can send us a Gift by cheque although we do set minimum Gift amounts and a minimum charge to cover our processing costs. Please see our fee sheet for details at stewardship.org.uk/fees.

8.2 Gift Aid

What is Gift Aid?

Gift Aid is a tax relief for those who pay income and/or capital gains tax, designed to benefit charities (and community amateur sports clubs). Gift Aid increases the value of payments into your Giving Account by the basic rate of income tax because as a registered charity, we can reclaim the basic rate of tax on your eligible Gifts.

Who is Eligible For Gift Aid?

If you have an individual Giving Account and have paid enough tax on your personal income and gains to cover the amount we are due to reclaim, you may be eligible for tax relief on your Gifts under the Gift Aid scheme. The reclaimed tax is then added to your Giving Account. If you are a corporate giver, we will not be able to claim Gift Aid on your Gifts, however you may be eligible for tax relief on your giving via your Corporate Tax Return.

The Gift Aid Declaration

In order for us to reclaim tax on your giving, you will need to complete a Gift Aid declaration with us to confirm that you have paid sufficient tax for us to reclaim. This can be done when you open the account or at a later date. Gift Aid can only be claimed on Gifts made by you as an individual and will require you to have paid sufficient tax. By completing the declaration, it is important that you understand you are agreeing to the following:

You want to Gift Aid any Gifts you make to Stewardship in the future (or in the past 4 years, if requested).
You are a UK tax payer and have paid enough Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax in any one tax year to cover the amount reclaimed on your giving to Stewardship and to any other organisations that may be making Gift Aid claims on your behalf in that year.
You are Gifting your own money and confirm that the funds have not come from anyone else, including family members, nor from a collection or on behalf of a corporate body. Your Gifts should be based only on the tax paid by you personally.
The money you are Gifting is not the proceeds from sales of goods or services (e.g. cake sale, auction, car wash), nor from the sale of tickets.
You are not receiving anything in return for making Gifts to Stewardship, e.g. an entry ticket to an event or a raffle ticket.
You must keep Stewardship updated with your current address to ensure that Gift Aid claims are valid.
If you pay less income tax and/or capital gains tax than the amount of Gift Aid claimed on all your Gifts in that tax year, it is your responsibility to pay any difference back to HMRC.

If you complete a Gift Aid declaration, we will automatically reclaim tax on all Gifts into your account unless you specifically tell us otherwise. If your circumstances change (e.g. you retire and no longer pay enough tax to cover the Gift Aid on your charitable giving) and Stewardship should not claim Gift Aid on your behalf, it is your responsibility to let us know. You can cancel your declaration at any time – just let us know.

How Our Gift Aid Claims Work

If your Gift is £25,000 or less, we provide an ‘Instant Gift Aid’ service under which we underwrite the value of the reclaimed tax so that this additional amount (less our administration fee) is immediately credited to your Giving Account and, if applicable, Donated to your chosen Recipient. For a Gift of more than £25,000, the reclaimed tax (less our administration fee) will be credited to your Giving Account once we receive it from HMRC and, if applicable, Donated to your chosen Recipient.

Other Information

Gift Aid is always claimed at the basic rate of tax, however if you pay tax at above the basic rate, you can claim additional relief on your Gift Aid Gifts directly from HMRC. You need to contact HMRC to reclaim this tax.
Please note that once a Gift has been made, we will not usually be able to adjust the tax status of the Gift. However in exceptional circumstances, or where we have made an error, this may be possible.
Under HMRC rules we are unable to reclaim tax if the Gift is on behalf of a group, company or another individual other than the Giving Account holder.

8.3 Making Donations From Your Account

We are able to support the majority of UK registered Churches and charities, as well as many full-time Christian workers, Bible college students and overseas charities. This is part of what makes Stewardship unique – we have thousands of Recipients and you can support a full-time Christian worker who is eligible to register with us, tax effectively.

Who can I make Donations to?

Broadly, we can support most general charitable purposes and there are many charities already registered with us, but because we are a Christian charity, we are not able to support charitable activities that oppose the Christian faith or advance another faith. You can use our online search facility to check whether a Recipient is already registered with us; simply log into your account online. Alternatively, you can contact the team with the recipient details and we will be able to check for you.

New Recipients

If we have not made a Grant to a particular Recipient before, we will need to determine their eligibility by sending them a Recipient application form. We will follow a thorough eligibility process to check this out for you. As a result this may take a few weeks, particularly if the Recipient is outside of the UK.

How to Make Donations

You can make donations from your account regularly as well as on a one off basis, as and when you choose. Donations can be set up, changed and cancelled at any time using your account online and also using our fundraising website, give.net. You can also contact us by phone, email or letter with the details of the donation and the recipient you want to support.

Linked Gifts

Depending on how you manage your giving, you can request that your Gift into the Giving Account, and the Gift Aid, are linked to the Donation from your Giving Account. This means that the Gift Aid will automatically be Donated to your chosen Recipient(s) proportionately. Alternatively, the reclaimed tax can simply be added to your account balance, ready for future Donation requests.

Anonymity

If you do not wish us to provide Recipients with your name and contact details when your Donation is arranged, you can request Donations to be anonymous.

Special Situations

Close relatives and connected persons: In line with Gift Aid regulations, some restrictions apply when you want to make a Donation to support individual Recipients: (1) donations for full-time Christian workers who are Close Relatives of you or your spouse can only be used for the individual’s ministry expenses and not for their living costs; and (2) you cannot make donations to a Bible college student if they are a Close Relative (Close Relatives and connected persons are defined by HMRC as referring to: a child, grandchild, parent, grandparent, brother, sister, or the spouse or civil partners of any of these, or a company under the control of the Giver, or under the control of connected persons).
Available Funds/Balance: Sufficient funds need to be held in your Giving Account for Stewardship to process a donation.
Donations For a Specific Purpose: Donations to charitable organisations will normally be applied to their general funds, however you may request that your Donation is allocated for a specific purpose by selecting a Recipient project, specifying an area of work or providing a specific reference to this effect. This can be noted as you process your Donation on line.

Other Information

Timing: We make payments to Recipients on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on their preference. If we haven’t made a Donation to a Recipient before, or for several years, we will check they are eligible to receive funds from us. This can sometimes mean that the Donation you have asked for is delayed.
Large Donations: We may need to undertake extra due diligence checks in relation to the Recipient and the purpose of the Donation. Stewardship must follow protective legislation to ensure that Gifts in and Donations out are checked which means that on some occasions, there may be a delay. Where there is a long delay or we are unable to arrange your Donation, we will always keep you updated.

8.4 Our fees and other deductions

Why we charge a fee

We deduct a charge from your Giving Account for administering your giving. This covers our costs and to help us continue our charitable objectives. Part of our charitable objectives is to provide Christian biblically led education material on generosity. Our Trustees Annual Report and accounts are available each year on our website and provide up to date information on all of Stewardship’s activities.

In the event that we make a surplus from any of our charitable activities, this will always be put back into our charitable work and to further our charitable objectives. Some examples of this are to:

Reinvest in our digital systems to make it even easier for people to give.
Build fundraising services like give.net.
Provide training and resources to equip churches and full-time Christian workers.
Create campaigns and resources to inspire people in their giving. Check out 40acts for a taster!

How much we charge

Information about our current charges structure can be found at stewardship.org.uk/fees, and is subject to change. Where we incur additional costs, perhaps for processing unusual or exceptional transactions, we may deduct a further one-off charge to pay for this, but we will always discuss this with you before making any deduction from your Giving Account balance.

How and when our fees are taken

If you are giving under the Gift Aid scheme, the charge is taken from the reclaimed tax, and not the initial Gift. For non-Gift Aid Gifts, the charge will be deducted from the initial Gift. Charges are shown clearly on your statement of account which you can view online.

8.5 Your Account Online

To help you manage your giving, we have an Online Service which enables you to access your account at any time of the day or night!

How do I access my Giving Account online?

When you open a Giving Account, as long as you have provided us with a valid and current email address, we will automatically send you details to enable you to login to your account online. Once you’re logged in, you can make Gifts into your account and set up one off or regular Donations quickly and easily.

Logging in

If you cannot find your login details or your login details won’t work, or if you have any questions about our Online Service, you can contact the Giving Services team who will be able to provide you with help and support during working hours.

8.6 give.net

What is give.net?

give.net (pronounced give dot net) is Stewardship’s online fundraising website. It provides a space for individuals to create and share their own fundraising pages, for full-time Christian workers to raise financial support online, and for churches and charities to create and maintain online giving pages.

How it works

It couldn’t be easier to set up your fundraising page and start making an impact for your favourite Recipient! If you already have a Giving Account, you can login and create your page from there. If not, simply sign up for give.net using our simple online form, and start fundraising straight away!

Choose your charity and build your page

It’s free, only takes a minute or two and you get to choose your very own give.net address.

Tell the world about your page

Share your give.net page with family, friends and colleagues, by email and across all your social networks.

Let the gifts start rolling in

The only thing you need to worry about is the messages your friends leave and making sure you reach your total. We’ll reclaim Gift Aid on any giving and add it to the pot we create to support your favourite charity.

8.7 Communication

The most secure way to contact us about your account is to login online and use the secure messaging facility. You can also contact us by phone, email or letter, where we will go through our security procedures before discussing account details.

Statements

You can access your account information at any time online, and we will send you quarterly emails to remind you to login and view your statement. Your statement will include a summary of your giving, which can be particularly helpful if you are a higher or additional rate tax payer and complete a Self Assessment tax return.

Share Magazine

We produce a magazine which we call ‘Share’ a few times a year, which includes information and inspirational articles on generosity and giving. This will be sent you automatically but if you don’t want to receive it, just let us know by phone, email or post.

Publicity and Announcements

If the Recipient you are supporting would like to make any public announcements in relation to your Gift or Giving Account, for example, the naming of a building, please let us know in advance so we can make sure that this is done in a way that complies with our legal obligations and our internal policies and procedures.

8.8 Account Users

Primary Users

An individual who sets up a Giving Account with us is the Primary User (or account holder) of that account. Where Gift Aid is applicable to a Gift, it will always be claimed in the name of the Primary User, therefore all Gifts into the account must be from the original account holder who (if relevant) signed the Gift Aid declaration.

Authorised users

We offer the ability for you to add other person(s) as an Authorised User on your account if you would like. This does not make it a joint account, but the other user(s) will be given their own online access and will be able to arrange Gifts and Donations, make changes and discuss details with us. To add an authorised user, log into your account online or call the Giving Services team. To keep your information secure, only Primary Users and Authorised Users will be able to use the Online Service or discuss the account with the Giving Services team.

8.9 Closing your account

How do I close my account?

You are free to close your account at any time. Simply let us know and we will aim to cancel (within 30 days) any regular giving and Direct Debit Instructions you may have set up. If there is a balance in the account please make sure this is Donated out before you would like to close the account.

What happens to my balance?

Because the funds in your account have been Gifted to us charitably, they form part of our charitable funds. As such, they cannot be returned to you and will need to be Donated to registered Recipient(s) or, alternatively, they may be applied generally for Stewardship’s charitable purposes.

Other reasons for account closure

In addition to voluntary requests from you to close your Giving Account, Stewardship will also have the right to close your Giving Account if there are any material and ongoing breaches of these Terms of Use by you (and/or Authorised Users). We will always try to discuss any problems with you first, but if these cannot be resolved, we will have the right to close your Giving Account and apply the funds for charitable purposes (which may include our general funds).

8.10 Dormant Accounts

What happens if you stop using your account?

If your Giving Account has no regular Gifts or Donations, after 6 months of inactivity, your Giving Account will be classified as “dormant” and we will attempt to get in touch with you to remind you about your account.

What happens if we cannot get in touch with you?

If your account remains inactive after 6 months, we will make further attempts to get in contact with you. If we are unsuccessful, we may need to close your account. After a period of seven years from your most recent transaction, if we are unsuccessful in making contact and we cannot determine your wishes, we will apply the funds for charitable purposes (which may include our general funds). For clarity, any deduction of our fees, costs, contributions or expenses will not be considered to be a Donation from a Giving Account for these purposes. We will always do what we can to stay in touch with you. Please keep us updated with your current contact details.

8.11 Expression of Wishes

If you would like, you can provide us with details as to how you would like us to Donate any funds remaining in your account in the event of your death. This includes nominating a successor to continue Donation requests. You can do this by completing the relevant part of our Legacy Giving Account application form and these details will be added to your Giving Account for us to use at the appropriate time. Please see the Legacy Giving Account section for further information. If no Expression of Wishes has been left at the date of your death, the funds in your Giving Account will be Donated by Stewardship, usually in line with your previous giving but ultimately at the discretion of Stewardship’s trustees for charitable purposes.

Now you know all about how the account works, take a look at the relevant section below to find out other important information about your Giving Account that is relevant to you.

9. Guidance for Specific Account Types

9.1 The 18-25 Account

If you are aged 18–25, we have just the account for you! All the regular features of our standard Giving Account, but with added perks to help boost your giving! Support your church, friends in Christian ministry and the charitable causes you care about, all in one place, with online access – change your giving whenever and wherever you choose.

What are the benefits?

We’ll add an extra £10 per month to your Giving Account for the first year, just as long as you keep giving!
Your Giving Account will be fee free for the first two years – we won’t keep back anything for admin.

How do I open an account?

Simply go to stewardship.org.uk/1825 to download an application form.

9.2 The Donor Advised Fund (formerly known as a Gold Account) and the Philanthropy Fund

If you are looking to give more than £25,000 per year into your Giving Account, our Donor Advised Fund may be suitable for you. Our Philanthropy Fund is for those wishing to establish a Giving Account with £500,000 or more. You may be a higher or additional rate tax payer looking for tax-effective ways to give to charity, be considering alternatives to a charitable trust, or perhaps you have a single, large amount that you wish to donate.

A Donor Advised Fund or Philanthropy Fund is the single place for all your tax-effective giving with no need for trustees or annual returns, and no legal costs – all the benefits of a charitable trust but without the usual complications. In addition to all the great features of the Giving Account, the Donor Advised Fund and the Philanthropy Fund also offer additional options, explained below, for those who may be in a position to give more.

Interest

With a Donor Advised Fund or Philanthropy Fund, we will pay “interest” (which is not technically interest, but income credits at our current rates) when your account balance is over £10,000, increasing the amount you have in your account to give away. All interest is calculated on a daily basis at our current rates and credited to your account at the end of each month, and we will let you know before we make any changes. Please see here stewardship.org.uk/gold for details of our current rate.

Pooled Investment Funds

As a Donor Advised Fund or Philanthropy Fund holder, you are able to request us to invest some or all of your account balance into one of our “Pooled Investment Funds”. These are ethical funds to the extent that companies with significant interests in products such as (without limitation) arms, gambling, tobacco and alcohol are excluded.

Funds comprise a wide range of Stock Exchange listed investments with a portfolio approach but it should be noted that these funds do involve investment risk and the value of any balance invested into the funds can go down as well as up. The types of investment fund(s) that Stewardship provide to Donor Advised Fund or Philanthropy Fund holders are ultimately at the discretion of Stewardship’s trustees (in accordance with Stewardship’s investment policy) and may change from time to time, although we will try to give you advance notice of this.

Details of our current investment funds, including minimum transfer amounts, Stewardship’s charges and our investment fund manager’s fees can be found at stewardship.org.uk/gold-account. Income from any units held in the funds will be credited to your Giving Account on a monthly basis, adding to the amount available to make Donations.

Other Gifts

As well as ‘cash’ Gifts into your account, you may wish to make Gifts of shares, securities, land and buildings. Special tax reliefs are available for Gifts to charity of shares and securities and for Gifts of land and buildings.

Shares Gifted to Stewardship will usually be sold promptly and the funds will be credited to your Donor Advised Fund or Philanthropy Fund. However, Stewardship has discretion to retain shares or in asset form where there is reason to do so. Details of our current procedure for Gifting shares can be found at stewardship.org.uk/gold-account.

Gifts of land and buildings would also usually be sold promptly. However, Stewardship has discretion to retain land and buildings in asset form where there is reason to do so. Where your Donor Advised Fund or Philanthropy Fund includes non cash assets previously Gifted to Stewardship, it remains your responsibility to ensure that there are sufficient cash funds in the account to meet any Donation requests that you may make from time to time. Please contact us if you would like to discuss one of these types of Gift.

Due diligence checks

From time to time, particularly where large Gifts are made or Donations requested, we may contact you, and/or your chosen Recipient(s), to discuss your requests in further detail as part of our due diligence processes and to ensure a charitable use of funds.

Fund name

With a Donor Advised Fund or Philanthropy Fund, you can personalise your giving even further by choosing a fund name for your account.

Additional applicants

If a second person (such as your spouse), who is already an Authorised User on your Donor Advised Fund or Philanthropy Fund, would like to make Gifts into your account from their own personal income, they can contact us to set up their own Giving Account so that any Gifts made by them will automatically be transferred to your Donor Advised Fund or Philanthropy Fund.

Additional features of the Philanthropy Fund

Our Philanthropy Fund offers bespoke giving solutions, tailored to you, including personalised solutions for complex giving arrangements and additional investment options. If you are interested in this service, please contact the Philanthropy Services team and we will be happy to arrange a meeting to discuss your needs. Bespoke services may be subject to additional fees and additional terms and conditions.

Dedicated team

The Philanthropy Services team has a dedicated phone number and email address, supported by a team of advisors specially trained to help you manage your Donor Advised Fund or Philanthropy Fund. The Philanthropy Services team is supported by a professional team of accountants, legal and investment specialists to make sure you have the advice and guidance you need to make your giving as effective as possible.

From time to time, we may offer further bespoke, tailored options and activities to Donor Advised Fund and Philanthropy Fund holders, and we will let you know if additional terms and conditions apply for these. For information about our Donor Advised Fund and Philanthropy Fund service, including contact details for the Philanthropy Services team, please go to stewardship.org.uk/gold-account.

9.3 Legacy Giving

Our Legacy Giving Account helps you to continue your generosity beyond your lifetime.

Whether you are thinking of leaving a legacy Gift to charity in your will, or if you view your lifetime giving as your legacy and have intentions as to how you envisage any balance being handled on your death, the Stewardship legacy options can cater for you

Leaving a legacy

If you leave a legacy Gift to Stewardship in your will, the Gift will be exempt from inheritance tax as a charitable Gift and could therefore reduce the tax otherwise payable.

HMRC allows additional tax breaks where more than 10% of an estate is given to charity. These rules may change from time to time, so please see HMRC guidelines, or contact the Philanthropy Services team for further information.

Completing a Legacy Giving Account application form will enable you to leave an Expression of Wishes to set out your request as to how you would like the Gift from your will, or an existing balance in your Giving Account, to be Donated after your death.

Once this is in place, you can easily and simply amend your Expression of Wishes during your lifetime, without having to change your will.

We do recommend that you seek legal advice on the preparation of your Will and any charitable Gifts you may wish to include. We have a helpful document to guide you through this at stewardship.org.uk/legacies

Gifts by Deed of Variation

If you have recently become entitled to a legacy gift from someone else, you can ‘divert’ part or all of your inheritance to a Stewardship Giving Account using a Deed of Variation prepared by your legal adviser.

A Deed of Variation may also be used to reduce the rate of inheritance tax applying to the remainder of the estate.

There are legal rules that apply and suitable professional advice is strongly advised.

Expression of Wishes

An Expression of Wishes is a letter to Stewardship, providing us with your requests as to how you would like us to Donate funds in your Giving Account, whether accumulated during your lifetime or from a legacy Gift in your will.

Our Expression of Wishes form provides three main options for you to choose from, or you may choose a combination of options:

Specified Donation to charities: Request that your legacy Gift is Donated to charitable causes immediately, or regularly over a specified time period.
Pass it on to another Stewardship Giving Account: Request that your legacy will be used to fund Giving Accounts for successors (family members, friends or trusted others), for them to Donate to charitable causes.
Entrust it to Stewardship: Request that your legacy Gift will be used by Stewardship to support high impact causes operating under three key themes of Christian evangelism, justice and mercy or generosity.

In the majority of cases, Stewardship will be able to carry out your wishes, however we cannot make Donations to charities that fall outside our charitable objects. If this is the case we will contact you after you have submitted the Expression of Wishes to explain and ask you to amend your wishes.

If no Expression of Wishes has been left at the date of your death, or if one of the Recipients named in your Expression of Wishes is no longer eligible to receive grants from Stewardship, the funds in your Giving Account will be used at Stewardship’s discretion towards its charitable purposes.

Whilst not obliged to do so, in deciding how to deal with the funds in your Giving Account, we may consider the pattern of Donation requests (if any) that you made from your Giving Account in a period of up to three years prior to your death.

9.4 Company giving

We can make it really easy for your company to give by offering a simple, effective way to make the most of all your company’s giving from one, secure, online account.

As a charity, we know the giving business inside out, but we won’t profit from your generosity. Light on administration, low on cost, supported by our highly skilled team of giving services advisors; you can trust us to ensure that your giving enhances, and doesn’t burden, your business.

Who is this account for?

The Corporate Giving Account can be set up for a UK Private or Public Limited Company. If you are a Sole Trader, please complete the application form for individual givers and Gift Aid can be claimed on your giving.

Unfortunately we cannot receive charitable Gifts from a Partnership (or LLP), however if you are an individual partner who wishes to give in your sole capacity, you can complete our Giving Account application form for individuals.

For companies who intend to give £25,000 or more in a year, a Corporate Donor Advised Fund offers some added benefits. Please see stewardship.org.uk/giving/corporate-gold-account.

Putting money into your account

Making Gifts into your Corporate Giving Account works in exactly the same way as the individual Giving Account, except that any Direct Debit, Debit or Credit card transaction or cheque payment will need to be made from your company bank account.

Company giving is not eligible for Gift Aid, however you may be eligible for tax relief on your company’s charitable giving, which would be claimed on your corporate tax return.

Due diligence checks

From time to time, particularly when more significant Gifts are made, we may need to contact you to ask for confirmation of company donations from the relevant parties before accepting the Gift.

Usually this would take the form of a Directors’/Board Minute and a solvency statement, but we can provide guidance where relevant.

Authorised users

The Director of the company will be the Primary User of the Corporate Giving Account.

The Corporate Giving Account application form provides opportunity for the Director to nominate another individual as an Authorised User for the account.

To keep your information secure, only Primary Users and Authorised Users will be able to use the Online Service or discuss the account with the Giving Services team.

Closing the account

You can close your corporate Giving Account at any time by contacting us to let us know. If there are funds in the balance of the account, we will discuss the Donation of these funds with you before closing the account.

If we establish that a company which holds a Corporate Giving Account with us ceases to operate all or substantially all of its business, enters into administration, administrative receivership or liquidation (or any steps are taken in relation to the insolvency of the company or enforcement of any of its assets), or the company starts negotiations or other arrangements with any of its creditors with a view to rescheduling any of its debts, then depending on the circumstances, we may be able to continue to allow donations requested by an Authorised User on the account. If we are not able to establish contact with an Authorised User, after 6 months, the funds in the account will become part of the general funds of Stewardship to apply towards its charitable purposes.

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