The Future of Bank Accounts? Original posting Nov 16th 2009

From Professional Fundraising:

All major banks will offer charity giving accounts "in the not too distant future", according to Coutts & Co's philanthropy chief.

What do you think - are they on the way?
Would you set one up?
Do you already have a 'giving' account?
Do you currently plan the way you personally donate to charity, and would this help?

Although my work focus is corporate fundraising, I'm very interested in individual giving, and how people make their decisions and plan (or don't) the way they support charities. Yes it's true - I'm a fundraising geek.

Coutts are known as being particularly selective in whom they accept as customers*, and of course, expect a minimum of £500,000 in 'disposable funds', so their customers tend to be the type that do plan their charitable giving. Most of us, I think don't tend to plan it at all - despite the fact that planning giving can mean the giving has a greater impact.

Sometimes in the North East, I find that people are reticent to share details about personal donations - who they support and even whether or not they plan their giving, but it would be interesting to find out.

Personally, I have a small range of charities I support monthly, as well as a few ad hoc ones when asked, but it's quite planned. I like the idea of having a single account to put aside some funds regularly into, so that I could make larger ad hoc donations.

*National lottery winners tend to have to settle for one of RBS' other private banks - Drummonds. Those of us living in Scotland have the traditionally Scottish, (personal favourite) Adam and Co.