Ghamdan Al-Areeky

Founder & Charity Mentor I'm Ghamdan Al-Areeky, founder of Evolve Catalyst and a charity mentor. I work with small UK charities to build organisations that work, so they can focus on the people and causes they exist to serve. I spent more than 15 years working inside UK charities - close to the day-to-day, across operations, systems, fundraising and strategy. What I saw again and again is that the problems a charity struggles with on the surface usually trace back to something underneath: the foundations that were never quite put right. Governance that doesn't hold. A strategy that stopped guiding decisions. Systems the team can't rely on. Income resting on a single funder. That's the work. I help charities at every stage - people turning an idea into a charity, registered charities that never quite got going, and established organisations pulled in too many directions - get those four foundations right, in the order that matters for them. I don't hand over a report and leave. I work alongside trustees, chief executives and their teams: helping them reach the decision, then helping them act on it, so what changes stays changed. No cause should be held back by the organisation built to serve it.

Handling Fundraising Complaints - A Guide for Small Charities

What to Do When Someone Complains About Your Fundraising

Ask a small charity when it last received a fundraising complaint, and the usual answer is never. The Fundraising Regulator defines a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about something done or not done. However made; so the…

Refusing and Returning Donations - What Trustees Must Decide

Why Refusing a Donation Is Harder Than You Think

A business you’re uneasy about offers £5,000. A donor’s money looks like it came from somewhere you’d rather not ask about. Someone gives generously, and a family member later rings to say they weren’t themselves. The instinct in each case…

Why Winning Grants Can Leave Your Charity Worse Off

A charity wins £20,000 for a project. The project runs, the outcomes are good, the funder is pleased. At year-end, the charity is further behind than it was. Nothing went wrong. The £20,000 covered the sessional worker, the materials and…

How Trustees Should Make Decisions That Hold Up

The seven principles of trustee decision-making were not written by the Charity Commission. They come from the courts, developed over years of reviewing decisions trustees had already made. That matters for how you use them. They are the test applied…

How to Register Your Charity with HMRC for Gift Aid

Being a registered charity does not let you claim Gift Aid. Being recognised by HMRC does not let you claim it either, not on its own. There are three steps, and charities routinely stop after the first two: register with…

Charity Serious Incident Reporting

A serious incident is an adverse event, actual or alleged, that results in or risks significant harm to people who come into contact with your charity through its work, significant loss of money or assets, damage to property, or harm…

Charity Conflicts of Interest in Practice

A conflict of interest arises when what is best for your charity competes with a trustee’s own interests, or with the interests of someone connected to them. Managing it is a legal duty, and it belongs to the whole board…

Converting a Charitable Company to a CIO

Conversion turns your charitable company into a charitable incorporated organisation without creating a new charity. No assets change hands, and the charity is not wound up. It keeps its charity number, its name and usually its bank accounts. You apply…

How to Write a Charity Reserves Policy

A reserves policy sets out how much of your charity’s freely available money you hold back rather than spend, and why. There is no standard figure, and no correct number of months’ running costs to aim for. The amount is…