While payroll giving, also known as Give as You Earn (GAYE) or workplace giving, has been a strong social norm in the US and elsewhere, the UK has much catching up to do in offering this flexible, tax-deductible scheme.

According to Payroll Giving in Action, while the employee participation rate is nearly 35% in the US, only 4% of UK employees participate in payroll giving schemes. As only 23% of the UK’s largest employers offer payroll giving today, the ‘Geared for Giving’ charity campaign aims to popularize the benefits of payroll giving to get more employees involved.

As major UK business leaders mobilize to launch a new phase of Geared for Giving, the charity campaign has revealed an updated brand developed by brand agency Design Culture. The new distinctive visual identity will be used as a core brand element in the company’s appearance on social media and online.

Kristen Streten, creative director at Design Culture, says, "The Geared for Giving campaign always had a strong visual identity, with its core bright pink colour and distinctive speech bubble logo, but we felt it should be updated to reflect the new goals of the campaign. We brought in a wider colour palette to broaden its appeal and support the campaign’s aim of making giving to charity through your pay a social norm in the UK, like it is in other countries in the world, such as the US. We also developed a strong visual style for delivering campaign messages consistently in all channels, particularly important for brand recognition as the campaign gains pace and calls on all employees nationwide to get on board.”

The goal of the campaign is to double the amount raised by payroll giving from £130m to £260m annually by increasing the amount of employees giving through pay from 1m to 2m. By making charitable giving a social norm in the UK, the campaign hopes to achieve this goal by calling for every company with over 250 employees to offer payroll giving within the next five years. This would allow more employees to support the causes close to them while providing charities with a steady flow of income.

The Geared for Giving campaign, founded by Peter O’Hara, launched in May 2008 at the House of Commons as a response to the lack of public awareness regarding the benefits of payroll giving. Since then, payroll giving has seen a £22m increase each year. The campaign is funded by some the UK’s biggest employers, including ASOS, BT, Beaverbrooks, Experian, Linklaters LLP and the Entertainer.