Charity Record Keeping and Meeting Minutes
What records a charity must keep, what good minutes capture, and how long to hold them Every charity has to keep proper records of its money, its decisions, and the people who run it. Some of it is a legal…
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.
Continue ReadingCharity Record Keeping and Meeting Minutes
How to Open a Charity Bank Account
The registration catch, what you need to apply, the checks banks run, and how long it takes Opening a charity bank account is mostly a matter of having the right documents ready and passing the bank’s checks, but there is…
Charity Banking
The account types, the banks, the fees, and how to choose the right setup A charity bank account holds and moves a charity’s money in the charity’s own name, rather than an individual’s. Every charity needs one; to keep its…
What Is a Charity Governing Document, and What Must It Contain?
The legal document that creates your charity and sets the rules it runs by A charity’s governing document is the legal document that creates the charity and sets out how it is run; its rulebook. It states the charity’s purposes,…
What Is Public Benefit, and How Do You Show It?
The legal test at the heart of being a charity – and what “showing” it really means Public benefit is the legal test at the heart of being a charity: every one of a charity’s purposes has to be for…
How to Choose a Charity Structure
CIO, charitable company, trust or association – and how to decide between them Your charity’s structure is its legal form – the thing your governing document creates – and it decides three practical things: whether your charity can hold property…
Charity Trustees
Who can be one, what the role requires, and how to appoint your first board A charity trustee is one of the people who holds overall responsibility for a charity; for its direction, its money, and making sure it does…
How to Write Charitable Objects That Pass
What the Charity Commission tests in your objects clause and why most rejections start here Your charitable objects are the clause in your governing document that states, in legal terms, what your charity exists to do. They are the part…
What Small Charity Week Shows About Online Fundraising
The lesson isn’t the money Small Charity Week runs from 22 to 29 June this year, and most of what you’ll read about it leads with the same figure: £1.84 million raised in seven days during the 2025 campaign. It’s…