Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
How to Give to Charity Without Spending a Penny
Moneymagpie Team
26th Apr 2025
However much we might want to give to charity, often it’s just not possible to sign up and commit to a direct debit every month.
So, how can we do good and help out charitable causes when we haven’t got that much money to spare ourselves?
Luckily, there are a few ways you can incorporate helping out charities into your daily life, without having to spend money you don’t have. Here are just a few of them…
- Donate via a cashback site
- Give to charity online: search engines that pay charities with each search
- Remembering to tick the Gift Aid box
- Give to charity by donating your stuff
- Play games online and give to charity
Donate via a cashback site
You might already use a cashback site – but if you don’t, ask a friend if they use one that they can send a referral link to. This means you both get some cash as an incentive when you sign up! TopCashBack, Swagbucks, and Quidco are popular choices.
You can choose to keep your cashback earned from your purchases for yourself, or donate to charity – either some or all of it. This helps you give back without spending anything more than you would have anyway!
Give to charity online with charity cashback sites
The alternative to using a cashback site of your own is to use one that manages the donations on your behalf. EasyFundraising.org and Savoo are both great examples of websites that have been set up to make sure consumers don’t pay anything extra, but instead of giving you cashback, they donate their commission from your sale to a charity of your choice.
Savoo is a particular favourite, because it also has a wide range of discount codes and offers, which means you save money while also raising money for charity.
Remember to tick the Gift Aid box
Never really been sure what Gift Aid is? It’s a nifty government scheme can help charities, with literally no effort from you at all.
Gift Aid is a long-running government scheme that gives charities a basic 20% tax relief on whatever you’re donating to them, as long as you’re a UK taxpayer. The scheme has been in place for 30 years, and has gifted charities billions of pounds in that time. All you have to do is tick the Gift Aid box whenever you’re making a donation, sponsoring your neighbour to run that 5k, etc, to ensure Gift Aid is included. Easy!
Gift Aid doesn’t cost you anything extra – but means the charity gets the tax relief on your donation. This puts more money in their pocket!
Give to charity by donating your stuff
You don’t need to be giving money to charity to be helping them out. Instead of throwing out that old chair or pair of jeans you’re bored of, or those kid’s shoes that don’t fit anymore, why not drop them off at your local charity shop instead?
Of course, you can support charities by shopping in their high street stores too – books, DVDs, clothes and lots more will be significantly cheaper than they would be in other retail stores, and you’ll be doing a good deed in the process. Remember to hand your donation bag to a member of staff and ask for the Gift Aid form to make sure they get the most from your donations, too.
Play games online and give to charity
Did you know you can raise money for charity just by playing games online? Turns out you can!
Our favourite find is the Free Rice website, from the World Food Programme. For every correct answer, the site’s sponsors will send the cash equivalent of 10 grains of rice to the World Food Programme, who will funnel it into feeding those in need around the world. Spending time on your phone has never felt so worthy!
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I’ve always donated my used items to charity shops, but during the COVID-19 lockdowns when they’ve been shut I’ve been taking part in online sponsored fundraising such as giving up chocolate for a month (for the 2nd year) and this summer my support worker and I will be taking part in a sponsored 1 Million Steps challenge this summer!
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Free money for charities; what’s not to like?