COMMENT
Win A Share Of £1,000 For Good Causes!

By Cliff D'Arcy
October 14, 2005

To celebrate the launch of National Giving Week on Monday, 17 October, we've joined forces with the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) to come up with a competition for our readers.

National Giving Week is an annual campaign to raise awareness of the importance of charitable giving, especially through tax-efficient donations. Happily, the strength of the Fool community means that we can make a small but welcome difference to the world in which we live, but we still need your help!

One way that you can do more to help good causes is by planning your giving more effectively. For example, when you drop a quid into a collection box, a pound is all that the good cause receives. However, taxpayers who give through Gift Aid instantly see each pound magically turned into £1.28, thanks to 22% tax relief from HM Revenue and Customs. Nice! What's more, higher-rate taxpayers can reclaim 18% of this £1.28 via their tax return, which means that their gift of £1.28 costs just 77p. Yippee!

For the record, if we all gave tax-efficiently, charities would receive a whopping £700 million more each year, which would go a long way to improving the lives of many vulnerable people. Of course, handing over money isn't the only way to help charities. Your time is valuable, too; indeed, millions of people get a great deal of personal satisfaction from volunteer work.

What you can do to make a difference

• Increase your support to your favourite charities;
• Ensure that you donate via Gift Aid all you need to do is tick a box or state that you're a taxpayer;
• Try making regular donations; many employers encourage you to do this via your payroll, through the Give As You Earn scheme; and

• Open a CAF Charity Account. This works like a current account and is completely tax efficient. With a CharityCard and 'chequebook' you can make donations at any time by post, standing order, online, by phone or in person. You can fund your account by cheque, credit/debit card payments, by gifts of stocks and shares or by monthly Direct Debit. You can also fund a separate CAF Charity Account through Give As You Earn.

And now for the exciting bit:

Win a share of £1,000 for your favourite charities!

The Fool and CAF are offering ten lucky winners £100 each to give to their favourite good causes. Simply click here to enter; it will only take you about thirty seconds to enter. This exclusive competition closes on 12 November, and winners will be notified by 30 November.

Good luck and many thanks for your support!