3.31.1 Charities may choose to collect cash donations in envelopes, such as church stewardship envelopes, so that they can show an audit trail linking the donation to the donor. For one-off donations, charities may choose to pre-print the Gift Aid declaration on the envelope for completion by the donor. If the donor is a regular supporter, the charity may already hold his or her Gift Aid declaration, in which case the envelope need simply contain either:
the donor’s name
some other unique identifier, such as a reference number which can be cross-referenced to a donor register
3.31.2 Where a unique identifier’s used, such as a reference number, ideally this should be unique to the donor. In practice, where envelopes containing the same unique identifier are used by the donor and his or her spouse and minor children, it can assumed that all the donations are from the donor, unless there is evidence to the contrary. 3.31.3 When the envelope is opened and the contents are counted, an official of the charity should record the sum that it contained both:
on the envelope
in a donor record
3.31.4 Charities should retain for the period set out in chapter 7
all envelopes on which a Gift Aid declaration is printed
a sample of other envelopes (normally for one month of the year)
the donor record