Bothy - Donor CRM with Consent, Gift Aid and Suppressions Built In
Donor CRM for a Scottish Environmental Charity
Designed and built a clickable donor CRM for a Perth-based wildlife charity registered with OSCR: supporter records that show what each person agreed to and how, Gift Aid claims that hold back gifts with a problem, and mailing selections that remove every suppression before a file goes out.
Most of our work is under NDA. Per agreement, we can share the work but not the company details - all names and identifying information shown here have been changed.
Impact
Dashboard, supporters list, supporter record with 9 tabs, Gift Aid claims and the selection builder. A Viewing as switch moves between 7 fundraising roles.
No permission for the channel, FPS, TPS for phone, deceased, gone away, do not contact, contact limit and other exclusions, each with the count it removed. The channel's permission rule cannot be switched off.
Each with its reason and a fix: a cancelled or out-of-scope declaration, no house number, a ticked reply slip with no declaration, a benefit over the limit. Claims over £10,000 need a second approver.
23 individuals and 2 organisations with full preference histories, 4 Direct Debit mandates, 8 Gift Aid claims, 5 funds, 4 live appeals and 8 staff users.
The Problem
The Trust raises about £6.8 million a year from around 31,000 active supporters, but had outgrown a desktop database bought in 2011, three spreadsheets and a shared inbox. Consent was a single "mailing OK" tick with no wording, date or channel. Gift Aid claims were built by hand once a year and missed gifts or included cancelled declarations, appeal mailings twice reached people who had asked to stop, and major donor conversations lived in one person's notebook.
Our Solution
Bothy holds every supporter and household, what they agreed to hear about and how, and every gift they make. It runs appeals with source codes, builds mailing selections that apply suppressions automatically, prepares Gift Aid claims for HMRC with blocked gifts set aside, and gives each fundraising role its own work list on the dashboard.
The Challenge: Fundraising That Can Show Its Working
A Scottish charity raising money from the public works under UK data protection law, electronic marketing rules, HMRC's Gift Aid rules and the Code of Fundraising Practice, and each supporter's record has to prove which of those rules was followed.
Consent With No Record Behind It
UK GDPR and PECR expect consent for email and SMS marketing, while post can rely on legitimate interests. A single tick could not show which wording a supporter saw, on which channel, when or from what source, or prove that an objection to marketing was honoured.
Gift Aid Claimed by Hand
Each claim needs a declaration covering the gift date, a donor who paid enough tax, no more than a small benefit, a house number and postcode, and no ticket or company payments. Claims are generally due within 4 years, and refunds or cancelled declarations must be adjusted later.
Mailings That Ignored Requests
Selections were pulled by a volunteer with a query nobody else understood. Every mailing has to drop FPS requests, TPS numbers for calls, deceased and gone-away supporters, people who asked not to be contacted and anyone over the Trust's contact limits.
Relationships Held in Notebooks
Major gift conversations and legacy pledges were not recorded, so nobody could forecast legacy income for the board. Prospect research must be explained in the privacy notice, and health or vulnerability notes must only be seen by the roles that need them.
Our Approach: From Fundraising Rules to a Clickable CRM
Spec and Rules Research
Mapped 9 staff roles plus supporters, 41 screens (38 staff screens and 3 mobile-first supporter pages) and the data model for supporters, households, versioned consent statements, channel permissions, suppressions, gifts, batches, Direct Debit references, declarations, claims, selections, prospect plans and legacies. Wrote down the rules the design follows: OSCR registration, the Code of Fundraising Practice, the FPS, Gift Aid, UK GDPR, PECR and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, Bacs Direct Debit and confirmation for Scottish estates.
Clickable Demo on a Production UI Kit
Built 5 key screens on a production dashboard kit: the dashboard with income by stream against budget, live appeals and a work list per role, the supporters list with saved views and contact icons per channel, the supporter record with preferences, declaration and 9 tabs, Gift Aid claims with a create and submit flow for finance, and the selection builder with a live waterfall and a mailing file preview. New gift and Log interaction panels work from the top bar. All actions run on local state.
What a Production Build Adds
Integration with HMRC Charities Online, a Direct Debit bureau (such as Rapidata, Access PaySuite or GoCardless), the donation checkout, JustGiving or Enthuse, Dotdigital or Mailchimp, Twilio, PAF address lookup, deceased, gone-away and TPS screening, and SFTP to the mailing house. Staff sign-in by role, an append-only audit log, and the remaining 36 screens, including batch entry, duplicates, major gifts, legacies, data protection requests, reports, settings and the signed-link supporter pages.
Why It Works: Every Permission Has a Source
Each Channel Shows Its Basis
Post, email, phone and SMS each show the permission, the basis (consent or legitimate interests), the wording version and the date and source it was collected. Suppressions appear as red chips that override the row, and an edit shows the full wording and writes to the record's history.
Suppressions Cannot Be Skipped
Picking a channel locks its permission rule on, and the waterfall shows how many people each suppression removed before the final count. Selections over 10,000 people or with lapsed supporters wait for the head of fundraising, and the file sent is logged with a hash.
Gift Aid Problems Surface First
Eligible gifts are grouped by month, small cash donations are aggregated without donor details, and gifts nearing the end of the claim window are counted. Blocked gifts sit in their own list with the reason and a fix, so they never reach HMRC by mistake.
Each Role Sees Its Own Work
The dashboard's My work list changes for supporter care, giving, major gifts, legacy, finance, data protection and the head of fundraising. Only finance can create and submit claims, and the Research tab is limited to permitted roles with a notice that each view is logged.
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Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
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Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
Contact Us
Locations
Global Headquarters
21 Merchant Road, 3rd Floor, Singapore 058267
Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
India Office
402 Shivalik Shilp II, SG Highway, Ahmedabad 380015
Engineering and delivery center
© 2026 - Copyright. All Rights reserved Oceanlab