Data Developments UK Ltd

A Message from Lord Pickles and Lord Blunkett, followed by Data Developments UK Ltd's best practice article

The ability to listen and learn from one another has always been vital in parliament, in business and in most aspects of daily life. But at this particular moment in time, as national and global events continue to reiterate, it is uncommonly crucial that we forge new channels of communication and reinforce existing ones. The following article from Data Developments UK Ltd is an attempt to do just that. We would welcome your thoughts on this or any other Parliamentary Review article.

Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett, MP

Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles, MP

www.datadevelopments.co.uk

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

56 | DATA DEVELOPMENTS

Stephen Hendy, managing

director

Contactless giving for

churches and charities

Winston Churchill once said that “we make a living

by what we get, but we make a life by what we

give”. Charities and churches form a part of life,

from fundraising for Children in Need to being a place for the

community to respond to a disaster or for personal instances

of giving. Each depends on public generosity and efficient

administration. Data Developments, a Midlands-based company,

was founded in 1985 to assist a local charity. The needs of small

to medium charities and churches drive its software development.

In a society which is becoming increasingly cashless, online and

contactless donations offer new opportunities and challenges

for the third sector. Stephen Hendy, managing director of

Data Developments, provides an insight into how its software

responds to charities’ needs in a changing society.

Imagine going to a restaurant and having to pay by cash, or having to keep a

selection of coins for car parking. It’s almost unthinkable. Yet, just a few years ago,

this was normal. So what would happen to a church or charity if they could only

accept cash donations?

Digital and contactless giving

Digital and contactless giving captures spontaneous generosity, but charities need

technology to benefit. MyGiving.Online, our online donations platform, enables

people to give using a “donate now” button on the charity’s website, QR codes

or through our mobile app. The software allows donors to manage their own

giving, update personal details, make donations or produce a personal-giving tax

FACTS ABOUT

DATA DEVELOPMENTS

»Managing director:

StephenHendy

»Established in 1985

»Based in Wolverhampton

»Services: Finance, donations

and membership software for

churches and charities

»No. of employees: 15

»Used by over 8,500 charities

and churches

»Innovative solutions including

integrating contactless

terminal donations into our

software

»www.datadevelopments.co.uk

Data Developments

57DATA DEVELOPMENTS |

BEST PRACTICE REPRESENTATIVE 2018

statement, and the charity records are

automatically updated. The Gift Aid

and Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme

(GASDS) claims are sent directly to

HMRC, and record keeping, reporting

and audit trails are all amended.

Charities and churches ready to

embrace the digital world can use

our contactless terminals. These can

be located either in or outside the

organisation. People can “tap and go”

on the terminal – it is fast, secure and

also provides the option to gift-aid the

donation. The information goes directly

into MyGiving.Online and, if gift-aided,

is immediately claimable. People can

donate quickly and easily even if they

do not have any cash on them.

Digital and contactless giving saves

both charities and churches time and

work. This method avoids the need to

count the cash, complete paying slips

and pay into a decreasing number of

high street banks. Using MyGiving.

Online along with our finance platform

MyFundAccounting.Online, donations

go straight into both systems. Their

donor and financial records are

updated immediately, meaning the

process is less time-consuming and

more secure. Each platform allows the

administrators to access the software

from multiple locations, and limit

access to the registered users.

Financial management

The income of charities and churches is

given based on the trust that it will be

used to further the stated aims of the

organisation. Whether using browser

or desktop software, the crucial issue

is continual trust in the integrity of

the process. The charity sector overall

manages huge financial resources and

often works with personal data. To

ensure this, the public’s trust regulations

have increased significantly, and include:

»Financial management from the

Charity Commission and the Office

of the Scottish Charity Regulator

»Donations and Gift Aid from HMRC

»Data protection from the Information

Commissioner’s Office

Given the range of this legislation, it is

understandable that people working

in the sector, often voluntarily, can

feel overwhelmed. To meet these

challenges, we concentrated on four

areas: finance, giving, membership,

and training and support.

We are dedicated to helping people do

the best job possible for their charities

and churches. We do this by listening

to people in the sector, and designing

software to make compliance easier.

The range of personal volunteering

experience within Data Developments

helps us greatly. As new technologies

become available and regulations

change, the challenge is to maintain

compliant software and still offer the

benefits of the digital world.

Our programs and how they

help

Finance: Our finance software, Finance

Co-ordinator and MyFundAccounting.

Online, promotes ease-of-use account

structures that enable the treasurers

to start quickly and easily. We include

“assistants” that guide the user step

by step through the more involved

Data Developments

GDPR conference, 2018

Charities and

churches

ready to

embrace the

digital world

can use our

contactless

terminals

“

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

58 | DATA DEVELOPMENTS

transactions such as bank transfers

and loans. These also provide more

accessible language, using “money

in” and “money out” rather than

debits and credits. Funds are managed

without the need for multiple bank

accounts. All reports are real-time,

including traditional accounting

reports, SORP-compliant reports with a

financial input to the trustees’ annual

report and a wide range of analysis.

Giving: Our aim is to broaden

the range of donations received

without adding to the workload of

the organisation. MyGiving.Online

software imports donations from

bank statements and other files to

minimise the data entry and keep

it as automated as possible. Our

donations system automatically

checks that donors and donations

meet HMRC requirements. It submits

claims directly to HMRC online,

expediting tax recovery and improving

cashflow. Thank-you letters are key to

maintaining relationships with donors,

and these can be produced from

oursoftware.

Membership: Maintaining data

protection and security is vital at any

time in any industry, but is especially so

when working with vulnerable people.

Our system maintains personal records

securely with encrypted notes where

appropriate, and provides options to

limit information shown on reports.

Skills, groups and visits can be recorded

together with facilities to provide

dynamic analysis of the information.

It also has options to record consent

and produce full information reports to

individuals if requested.

Training: Showing, rather than telling,

people through simple explanations

and points of best practice helps

to accelerate the learning curve.

Course notes are provided to keep

the training in-house. Our courses

take place around the country and

provide opportunities for charities and

churches to share, even prompting

collaborative projects. As with our

training, the support we offer is

friendly and professional – people feel

safe asking anything.

Partnerships

We started locally and spread first

through word of mouth. Local, then

national, exhibitions helped us to

engage with more varied charities.

Solutions requested by our users lead

us to work with umbrella organisations

and sector experts including

dioceses and national accountants.

Consequently, we developed varied

compliant account structures and

reports which gave users an easy

start. Sharing encouraged the flow of

bestpractice.

At crucial points, such as the

introduction of Gift Aid or, more

recently, digital giving and the

General Data Protection Regulation,

we felt we could support by offering

conferences with expert speakers.

The family atmosphere we fostered in

the company has spread to our users,

and in 2015 we hosted a free 30th-

anniversary celebration conference and

lunch. It is at these times in particular

that we are able to encourage best

practice and collaboration.

We started

locally and

spread first

through word

of mouth

“

MyGiving.Online – Data

Developments’ online

donations platform

www.datadevelopments.co.uk

The Parliamentary Review Publication, in which this article originally appeared, contained the following foreword from The Rt Hon Theresa May MP.

The Rt Hon Theresa May MP's Foreword For The Parliamentary Review

By The Rt Hon Theresa May MP

This foreword from the then Prime Minister appeared in the 2018/19 Parliamentary Review.

British politics provides ample material for analysis in the pages of The Parliamentary Review. For Her Majesty’s Government, our task in the year ahead is clear: to achieve the best Brexit deal for Britain and to carry on our work to build a more prosperous and united country – one that truly works for everyone.

The right Brexit deal will not be sufficient on its own to secure a more prosperous future for Britain. We also need to ensure that our economy is ready for what tomorrow will bring. Our Modern Industrial Strategy is our plan to do that. It means Government stepping up to secure the foundations of our productivity: providing an education system that delivers the skills our economy needs, improving school standards and transforming technical education; delivering infrastructure for growth; ensuring people have the homes they need in the places they want to live. It is all about taking action for the long-term that will pay dividends in the future.

But it also goes beyond that. Government, the private sector and academia working together as strategic partners achieve far more than we could separately. That is why we have set an ambitious goal of lifting UK public and private research and development investment to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027. It is why we are developing four Grand Challenges, the big drivers of social and economic change in the world today: harnessing artificial intelligence and the data revolution; leading in changes to the future of mobility; meeting the challenges of our ageing society; and driving ahead the revolution in clean growth. By focusing our efforts on making the most of these areas of enormous potential, we can develop new exports, grow new industries and create more good jobs in every part of our country.

Years of hard work and sacrifice from the British people have got our deficit down by over three quarters. We are building on this success by taking a balanced approach to public spending. We are continuing to deal with our debts, so that our economy can remain strong and we can protect people’s jobs, and at the same time we are investing in vital public services, like our NHS. We have set out plans to increase NHS funding annually by an average by 3.4 percent in real terms: that is £394 million a week more. In return, the NHS will produce a ten-year plan, led by doctors and nurses, to eliminate waste and improve patient care.

I believe that Britain can look to the future with confidence. We are leaving the EU and setting a new course for prosperity as a global trading nation. We have a Modern Industrial Strategy that is strengthening the foundations of our economy and helping us to seize the opportunities of the future. We are investing in the public services we all rely on and helping them to grow and improve. Building on our country’s great strengths – our world-class universities and researchers, our excellent services sector, our cutting edge manufacturers, our vibrant creative industries, our dedicated public servants – we can look towards a new decade that is ripe with possibility. The government I lead is doing all it can to make that brighter future a reality for everyone in our country.

British politics provides ample material for analysis in the pages of The Parliamentary Review

The Rt Hon Theresa May MP
Prime Minister