If any of you make large or regular donations to charity, you maywish to consider making these donations through the Charities Aid Foundation, in particular using their CAF Charity Account.

The CAF is a meta-charity which helps charities to focus their efforts on their charitable goals, rather than on business and administration issues. For example, the CAF conducts reaseach and analysis, offers advice on fundraising and investment, provides management consultancy services, and processes donations to ensure that tax is reclaimed from the government on them.

It's this last item that the CAF Charity Account aids; donations to registered charities are tax-exempt, but the onus of reclaiming the 22% (which adds 28% to the value of the donation once reclaimed) is generally on the charities themselves, and many small charities lack to resources to do this. The CAF reclaims in bulk all of the tax owed on donations made through them, ensuring that more money goes to the intended charity without them having to process the tax reclaim themselves.

More information on effective donations can be found on the CAF website and also on CAF's "All About Giving" website.