Giver FAQs

If you have made a Direct Donation to a cause, the donation can take up to one week to show in your supporter account. If after this time your direct donation is not showing, please get in touch with us using the Contact Us option.

Our relationship with Amazon changed as of Monday the 10th February 2020.  Legal requirements mean that we are unable to offer any incentive, rewards or donations for using our links to Amazon. However, we promote Amazon as an affiliate partner and the income generated enables us to continue the fantastic work we do. What does this mean for Givers and Causes? Amazon shopping now generates income to continue our amazing work but we are unable to give it away. Your shopping at the other 2,600+ retailers and engagement in promotions will continue to generate donations for the causes you love. We have introduced free bonus donations to give out a far higher % of our advertising revenue to make sure supporters and causes don't miss out. TheGivingMachine is still the best online shopping platform that makes you feel good. Amazon's operating agreements for commercial partners explicitly prevent the community cashback model we previously operated and, in line with other similar schemes in the UK and internationally, this arrangement has come to an end.

• The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) is a regulation by which the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission intend to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the European Union (EU).  The GDPR aims primarily to give control back to citizens and residents over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU.
• GDPR is all about empowering us as individuals to have more control over our data and how people use it and as a charity, we want to make sure we take GDPR seriously. This FAQ gives an overview of what changes TheGivingMachine has made and why.  Please see our privacy policy for our full legal statement.

  What data do we hold?

• We hold the names, addresses, email addresses and Gift Aid declarations provided to us by members (Givers).  We also hold the associated contact names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers provided to us by administrators for causes.
• We also hold information on payments and donations made by Givers to the TheGivingMachine.

What are the lawful bases on which we “store” and “process” your data?

• We store your data because there is “legitimate interest” in being able to record your membership, the causes you support and donations you’ve generated.  We will send information to you about your account on a regular basis as well as confirming any changes you have made.
• We also send various marketing emails that may relate to offers, top tips, new features and so on.  For these emails, we need explicit "consent" and to make sure that this is recorded correctly, we have sought re-consent from our existing audience.

  What changes were made for Givers and Causes?

• We continue to send account related emails but they only contain relevant account information
• For Givers, we request explicit consent to send non-essential account information (e.g. offers, top tips, new shops, messages from causes etc.).
• We do not share Giver contact details with Causes but we do provide Causes an ability to publish thank you messages for their supporters to receive.

  Your rights:

• You have the right to ask for a copy of information we hold on you and ask for it to be amended or deleted.

  TheGivingMachine’s Responsibilities:

• Will will ensure that your data is kept private and only used by relevant people to carry out our activities.  We do not share this information with any organisation unless it is essential to deliver the services we provide (e.g. email marketing, query management etc.).

After you have shopped via the TheGivingMachine website or app, your purchases will be tracked in their systems as having come via TheGivingMachine. We import the data from shops every few days so your supporter account should be updated within a few days. However, it can take between 2 and 6 months for the money itself to come through to us from retailers. Online shops typically have a 28 day returns policy, and most shops pass on commissions 30-60 days after this. Also travel companies often wait until after a holiday has been taken before approving the donation. We distribute donations TheGivingMachine has received, once a month, by bank transfer for all balances over £15. Some shops are faster than others at paying their partners. Unfortunately, some of the most popular ones can also be the slowest. This is not unique to TheGivingMachine but all sales partners of these shops. Once donations are showing on a Supporter's account, they are being tracked by both the shop and TheGivingMachine.

Yes, shopping and donating via TheGivingMachine will not cost you a penny! All donations start as a referral commission payment that you enable to become a donation. Behind the scenes there are hundreds of £millions spent by retailers every year in sales commissions to shopping websites, comparison sites and product review sites. You just don't usually hear about them. TheGivingMachine receives these commissions and then converts them into free donations. Without your help, this hidden money cannot achieve its potential for the causes you support. As a Cause, your supporters generate these donations on your behalf and you reap the rewards for your cause - again, this is at no cost to you. We provide free promotional materials on our website to help you encourage your supporters to #clickshopgiveforfree TheGivingMachine retains a % of the commission to run the website and distribute donations. We are transparent about this and more detail is provided in another FAQ. You cannot lose!

If you require a summary of your donations to complete your Tax Return please email info@thegivingmachine.co.uk and we can provide this for you.  

The commissions you generate can now be treated as donations to TheGivingMachine charity.   With your support, we can then claim Gift Aid on these donations. Please see our terms and conditions for more detailed info. We pass on 50% of your core donation to TheGivingMachine into a free donation to your cause(s). Here's an example:

• A retailer shows a giving % of up to 2.5% on TheGivingMachine
• You make a purchase via TheGivingMachine of £100 and that generates a sales commission of £5 (remember we publicly show 2.5% as that is the maximum giving %)
• We allocate £2.50 to your causes via your Giver account

The funds retained by TheGivingMachine help keep it running so we can offer this free service, support a growing community and keep improving the features and functions. If you would like a donations report - please just Contact Us and we'll send that to you.

• Our systems are updated daily and donations will normally appear on your account within 6 days. However, some shops might be slow to post their transactions so we recommend waiting at least a week after your purchase before contacting us with any queries. This resolves the vast majority of queries.
• If you feel that there is still a problem after this time, please can you provide the following details of each transaction you think should be showing for us:
  • Shop:
  • Date:
  • Amount: £
  • Order Ref:
  • Type of Purchase:
• Ideally, sending us order confirmation emails via - Contact Us, would be best but the basic information above enables us to get started.

The online shops pay sales commissions to TheGivingMachine charity. These commissions are included in the sale price of the products and services from the shops as a reward for referring business.

If we don’t list the cause that you are looking for, then please let them know that they are missing out on free money! It may simply be that they don't know about TheGivingMachine. Nearly all organisations with charitable status, including most schools and any charity registered with the Charity Commission, can join us and we don’t charge causes for joining or using TheGivingMachine. If you represent a cause that would like to participate, please sign up in the Cause Portal.

Although we are often adding retailers to the site, some retailers change their marketing strategies from time to time. We therefore have to remove them from our site at these times.

All special offer codes we provide will work. But if you use an offer code you’ve been given somewhere else, the shop will probably have to cancel any commission payable to TheGivingMachine – and therefore, donations to your causes. Don’t worry – you’ll still gain points on loyalty schemes like Nectar and Clubcard when you buy things through TheGivingMachine.

If you use a search engine (like Google) to search for an item and then log into your supporter account to make the purchase, we might not receive the commission. It may be paid to the search engine instead (as they brought you to that retailer). It is always best to log-in and then browse/shop

The Shop&Give reminder sits quietly in your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome) as an extension. When you search for products online, the purple heart icon highlights which shops will give for free via TheGivingMachine. And even if you don't use a search engine, you'll be notified if the shop is participating in TheGivingMachine, and prompted to give as you shop. It really is as simple as that.

We allocate donations to the causes that the Supporter has chosen at the time they buy something.  Once changes to your causes have been made, future purchases made via TheGivingMachine will then be allocated to your updated causes.

In the unlikely event that we can’t immediately match a donation with a Supporter, we’ll investigate the transaction and endeavour to allocate it correctly.

The Free Bonus Donation is available via TheGivingMachine's Shop&Give website to all registered Supporters. When you log in to your Supporter account you’ll see  ‘Today's Bonus Donation’ written near the top of the page. Simply click on the ‘Collect Now’ button to collect your Free Bonus Donation. You can collect one donation per day and the best bit is that you get to come back every single day to collect another Free Bonus Donation. There are a few simple points you need to remember:

• You will need to be logged or signed in to your Supporter account to collect the bonus donation,
• Donations will be uploaded to your account within a few days,
• You can only collect one Free Bonus Donation per day,
• Donation amounts may vary,
• Unfortunately we are unable to investigate any queries regarding the Free Bonus Donations.

The Free Bonus Donations only run when we have a retailer sponsoring them.

TheGivingMachine supporters can now donate directly to their favourite good cause. Supporters do not need to be signed up as a Supporter on TheGivingMachine to donate and we only ask that the transaction fee is covered – the donor has the choice of adding this to their donation or having it deducted from the donation (the transaction fee amount is shown before any payment is taken). There are no other fees for the cause or donor. Donate Now payments will be forwarded to the cause in the following months' payment run. To Donate Now supporters can simply visit the cause page they wish to donate to and select the Donate now button.

The only details that TheGivingMachine uses are the ones Supporters let us know when setting up their Supporter account (email address, post code etc.). Please note, we will never pass on or sell this to third parties. When Supporters buy something via TheGivingMachine, they are transacting directly with the retailer and we do not have any involvement with that purchase. We then get a data report from the online retailers we work with that lets us match up donations to the Supporters that generated them.

One reason that the online shops take so long to pay commissions is that it allows for returns. If a sale is cancelled, the online shop can deduct a previously paid or pending commission from the next month’s payment to TheGivingMachine. In turn, we’ll deduct the revenue from this commission from the amount we pay to the beneficiary.

Many of the charities and schools send out ’thank you’ messages to everyone who supports them at least once a year. Please ensure your contact preferences have allowed them to contact you with periodic updates.

Yes! You never need to miss a chance to donate again with our Shop&Give reminder. You can find out more and download the browser extension here.

All the online shops we work with have agreed to pay a commission in the form of a cash donation every time you click on their link on our site and buy a qualifying product from them. If you don’t access the online shop via the links on our website or the Shop&Give reminder, then the causes you’ve chosen won’t get a donation. Install our Shop&Give reminder to make sure you never miss a chance to donate.

We will always try our best to resolve any problems that have arisen in the course of the correct use of our website. If you have contacted us already, feel that we have not dealt with the issue appropriately and would like to take further action, please contact us and ask for our Complaints Procedure to be forwarded to you. This procedure follows guidelines that are set out by the FRSB (of which we are a member) and explain what to do next.

Log in to your Supporter Account and go to the My Account button at the top right of the screen - hover over and a drop down menu will appear. In Edit Details, towards the bottom, there is a section where you can select your email and privacy preferences.   Please be aware, you cannot unsubscribe from service emails, which are necessary for account maintenance and for financial notifications - we do try to keep these to a minimum!