The Campaign - Empower

The loan from RBS was necessary to purchase the site but is a huge millstone round Longridge's neck, restricting our ability to expand.

Our £800,000 loan from Royal Bank of Scotland requires repayments over the next 20-years. To remove this debt, and empower Longridge to offer more activities to more young people, we are seeking 10 individuals or corporations that will pledge £10,000 a year for the next 10-years.

Those that join our 10x10x10 programme will become Longridge Patrons, with their names included on all promotional material and on our Patrons board and we ask our Patrons to assist in the recruitment and selection of our Trustees and input into our strategic direction.

For an individual:

If you are a UK tax payer, we are currently able to claim 28p for every £1 you donate, based on the current basic tax rate of 22% (but note that your tax for the year must exceed what we wish to reclaim). From 6th April 2008 the basic tax rate changes to 20% and this will change to 25p for every £1 you donate.

For example, if you donate £7,800 and sign a Gift Aid Declaration we can reclaim £2,200 Gift Aid, giving us a total of £10,000. Gift Aid is currently calculated at the basic tax rate of 22%. With the change in the basic rate of tax to 20% in 2008, if you donate £8,000 we can then reclaim £2,000 in Gift Aid. If you are a higher rate tax payer (40%), you can claim back the additional 18% through your self assessment tax return. This means the net cost of your donation could amount to £6,000.

For companies:

To give through Gift Aid, your company simply pays £10,000. Your company does not deduct any tax from the donation and does not need to make a Gift Aid declaration to the charity. To get the tax relief, you deduct the amount of the donation from total profits prior to calculating your company’s corporation tax.

For example, at the higher rate of tax you could gain 40% tax relief – ie in the simplest terms, donating £10,000 could only cost you £6,000 as you could claim £4,000 in tax relief.