Donate

Buy a piece of Sawbridgeworth’s future

Donations go into our land fund. When a field comes up for sale, that fund is the difference between making an offer and watching it go.

We are not taking donations yet. Online giving and Gift Aid both wait on our charity registration, which is with the Commission now. Larger gifts, legacies and gifts of land we can talk about today – email info@sawbridgeworthlandtrust.com.

Coming soon

Online giving opens with our registration

A charity needs its registration before it can take donations properly, claim Gift Aid on them, or open the account they are paid into. Ours has been with the Charity Commission since September 2026. The Commission is taking a long time over new applications at the moment, so it may be a while – we will announce it on our news page and by email the day it comes through.

Rather than take card details we cannot yet process, we would rather you told us you are interested. We will write once when giving opens, and that is all we will use your address for.

Tell us you want to give

Or join our mailing list and hear the moment giving opens.

Thinking about a substantial gift, a legacy, or giving land itself? Email info@sawbridgeworthlandtrust.com and we will talk it through now – those take time to arrange anyway.

What your money does

We are volunteers with no salaries and no office. Almost everything we raise goes towards buying land; the rest covers the unavoidable costs of buying it – searches, legal fees, the occasional survey.

Paid staff: 0
Offices to rent: 0
Trustees paid: 0

Those three are structural, not aspirational: the constitution bars trustees from taking any financial benefit beyond out-of-pocket expenses. We will publish the full split of income and spending in our first annual accounts.

Regular giving is worth more than it looks

A predictable monthly income lets us tell a seller what we can afford before the field goes to auction, rather than after.

The land stays the land

Anything bought with your donation is held for our charitable objects. Selling it would take written advice from a qualified surveyor and the best terms reasonably obtainable, the money would have to stay inside the charity, and a sale to a trustee or anyone connected with one needs the Charity Commission’s consent.

We tell you what happened to it

Every purchase is reported to members and published in our annual accounts.

Other ways to give

Not everyone wants to give online

Coming soon

Bank transfer and standing order

The charity’s bank account opens with its registration. We will publish the account details here then, and send a standing order form to anyone who asks for one.

Gift Aid

Gift Aid adds 25p to every pound you give, at no cost to you. We can only claim it once HMRC recognises the charity, which follows registration – so it is worth waiting for that rather than giving now and losing it.

A gift in your will

A legacy is the most direct way to protect land permanently. Email info@sawbridgeworthlandtrust.com and we will send the wording your solicitor needs.

Giving from a company or a trust? Once registration is granted we can receive grants, corporate gifts and donations of land itself. Email info@sawbridgeworthlandtrust.com and we will point you at the right route.