COMMENT
Help Us Raise £5,000 - It Won't Cost You A Penny!

I had an eerie experience on Monday, 27 December, the public holiday after Boxing Day.

I got up at 6am to be taken to the Radio Five Live studio to talk about one of my favourite topics: getting out of debt. After the car had dropped me at White City, I waited in the BBC reception area, watching a huge bank of TV screens.

All the news programmes were covering a single story: the devastation caused by the tsunami in south-east Asia. I'd watched almost no television the previous day, so I'd no idea about the horrific destruction and loss of life. It dawned on me that there was no way that my radio interview would go ahead and, sure enough, one of the news team came down to tell me that it was cancelled.

Two things worried me about the charity appeal that began immediately after news of the disaster broke. My first concern was that banks, credit-card companies and Internet-security firms stood to make hundreds of thousands of pounds from public donations made via debit or credit cards. Typically, banks charge fees of between 1% and 3% for processing these transactions – money which would be better spent on emergency supplies.

The good news is that these companies have generously agreed to waive their usual fees, which means that all money pledged online, by telephone or by cheque will be free of bank charges. This waiver will be backdated to the start of the fund-raising campaign, so no charity will lose out. Yippee!

My second worry was that millions of donors would drop money into collecting boxes, when there is a much more effective way to donate. If you are a taxpayer – and the vast majority of adults are – you can boost your charitable gift with a handout from the taxman.

A Gift Aid donation means that every pound you hand over attracts a 28p tax refund from the Inland Revenue – at no cost to you whatsoever! In other words, every £1 turns into £1.28 instantly. All you need to do is to make a Gift Aid declaration, which involves ticking a box or saying "Yes, please" when asked if you'd like to donate via Gift Aid.

What's more, higher-rate taxpayers (those who pay tax at the 40% rate) can claim back 18% of Gift Aid donations via their tax return. This means that the above £1.28 costs a higher-rate taxpayer just 77p. Everyone (except the Inland Revenue) is a winner with Gift Aid!

Another way to make tax-effective donations is to open a Charities Aid Foundation account, known as a CAF Charity Account. You can fund a CAF account by cash, cheque, standing order, debit or credit card, and can make donations via post, telephone, online or in person.

Although The Motley Fool is a small business, our managers are big-hearted Fools. We need your help to raise up to £5,000 for the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), one of the charities at the core of the tsunami appeal.

Click here to read more about charitable giving and The Motley Fool will donate 15p to DEC – and it won't cost you a penny. Only one click per reader will count! So, if we hit our target of 33,333 clicks, we'll donate £5,000 to DEC. So, what are you waiting for? Forward this article to your friends, family, work colleagues and everyone you know!

Finally, reading the great no-nonsense advice on The Motley Fool has helped millions of people to make better financial decisions. For example, these 25 quick money-saving tips should help you to make several grand a year and these ten tips will help to negotiate a better pay rise this year. So, if the Fool has helped you to make more money, why not cough up a few quid to help people whose lives have been shattered? Even £5 will help someone to rebuild their life – just don't forget to include details of your donation on your tax return if you want to reclaim the higher-rate tax!

> Make a donation via the DEC website.