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…
Free Resources for Small UK Charities
For trustees, CEOs and founders doing three jobs at once
Practical guidance for the people running small UK charities - trustees carrying legal duties alongside a day job, CEOs holding a service together with a team of two, and founders working out what they've taken on.
Every article is checked against the regulators rather than against what other people have written, and it's pitched at the scale you actually work at. Nothing here replaces advice on your own situation. It should tell you what the rules say, what they mean at your size, and what to do next.
Continue ReadingWhat Is Public Benefit, and How Do You Show It?
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…
Five Gift Aid Mistakes That Put Your Charity at Risk
A charity can do everything right and still get Gift Aid wrong. The staff are dedicated, the trustees are diligent, the donations are genuine, and somewhere in the process, a claim gets made that shouldn’t have been, or a declaration…
Why Was My Charity Registration Application Refused?
What the Commission is really telling you, and what to do next A refusal letter from the Charity Commission rarely lands where you expected. You were braced for a problem with a form or a missing signature. Instead, the letter…
Why Funders Won’t Back Your New Charity Yet
You register the charity. The certificate arrives. And within a fortnight, the question lands; from a trustee, a supporter, sometimes from your own head: what can we apply for? It’s the natural next move. You’ve got a cause, a board,…
Rebuilding Trust After Conflict in Your Charity
Why the Case Closing Isn’t the End You can usually feel it before you can name it. A grievance has been resolved, or an investigation has concluded, the paperwork is filed, and the process is formally over, and yet something…
Is Your Charity Solving the Problem, or Just Managing It?
Try finishing this sentence out loud, in your own words: “If our work succeeds over the next five years, the thing we exist to address will…” Most charity founders or trustees can start that sentence. Many find they can’t quite…