Charities work under rules that change, and the duty to keep pace sits with the trustees. This is where we cover what the Charity Commission and other regulators expect, how to run a board that works, and the compliance obligations that come with being registered – set out plainly, so you know where you stand and can deal with problems before they grow. Setting a charity up sits here too: registration, HMRC recognition, charitable objects and governing documents.
Most CICs that look at charitable status are looking at it for the same reason. Grant funding is hard to reach. Trusts and foundations will not consider you, some public sector work assumes charitable status, and Gift Aid is not…
You applied in February. It is now September. You have had an automated acknowledgement and a line about high demand for registration services, and nothing since. Every few weeks you wonder whether the silence means somebody has found a problem.…
A charitable company is a company first and a charity second. That sounds like a technicality. It is the reason almost everything about setting one up surprises people – the order you do things in, the two regulators, the two…
A board of five ran a review last year. Everyone completed the questionnaire; the responses were collated, and the conclusion was that the board was working well, with some room for improvement in communication. The document went in the file.…
The treasurer left in March and took the working knowledge with him. The accounts were nearly ready, then they were not, and the deadline went past while the board was dealing with something else. Nobody has the login. It has…
A trustee stopped coming to meetings eighteen months ago. They answer emails occasionally, have not resigned, and will not say whether they intend to continue. The board wants them off the register and has assumed it can vote them off.…
Your founder has run the charity unpaid for three years. The work has outgrown what anyone can reasonably volunteer; the board agrees she should be paid as coordinator, and everyone is comfortable with the decision because it is obviously right.…
One of your trustees is a builder. The roof needs doing; he quotes below what anyone else would charge, and the board says yes because it obviously saves the charity money. Nobody minutes much. There is no contract, because he…
There is a trustee on your board who drives forty minutes each way to every meeting and has never claimed a penny. She has not been told she can. Nobody has been unkind about it; the subject has never come…