Business charity donation: Planting the seeds of wellbeing with NHS Forest

A small blackboard saying 'Sensory Garden' on a garden border behind 3 purple flowers and low green shrubs.

Highbury Community Garden, Nottingham. Photo: Miriam Dobson/Centre for Sustainable Healthcare 2021. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

I’m delighted that our first business charity donation will help make healthcare sites across the UK greener and healthier through the NHS Forest project.

The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare runs the project, which brings together over 400 NHS healthcare sites. They plant trees and create beautiful green spaces that benefit patients, staff and the environment. In addition to the donation, I’ve offered two days each year to the charity.

In case you’re wondering, here’s why I chose to donate to NHS Forest:

🌳 Trees are integral to our ecosystem, and we must protect them
The Woodland Trust reports that less than 10% of the UK’s native woods are in good ecological health.

🌳 Personal reasons
My grandma had multiple sclerosis and spent over 40 years in a hospital bed with minimal views of green space.

🌳 Reducing my environmental footprint
As a writer and editor of ESG and sustainability reports for clients, I want to do my part.

🌳 Health and wellbeing
Supporting NHS Forest is a great way to help a sector I write for engage with nature through workplace wellbeing.

You can read about the many ways NHS Forest helps to green NHS sites on its website: https://nhsforest.org/green-your-site/

Business donations to charity

A4 certificate with text on a white background and green border with illustrations of wildlife. Text reads NHS Forest Certificate of Donation, Harmer Editorial. A big thank you for donating to the NHS Forest.

If you’re a small business interested in business charity donations, you may find it surprisingly challenging. It’s not just about budget, although I discovered that the minimum many charities require for partnerships is an eye-watering £25,000. It’s also about being publicly associated with them.

Several of the largest charities I contacted cited the Charities Acts and the Code of Fundraising Practice. These legal obligations mean the charity must determine whether it is in a commercial relationship or a donation. It may need to charge your business VAT if:

  • Your messaging says you’re ‘in partnership with’ or ‘kindly sponsoring’
  • You benefit significantly from displaying a logo at an event
  • You’re running a time-limited marketing campaign on media channels

It’s much simpler to make an unrestricted donation – without strings attached – outside VAT’s scope.

You can read more about sponsorship versus donations on the Charity Tax Group website.