Category : Charities

Recent High-Profile Safeguarding IncidentsThis month we consider the important and sensitive issue for charities of safeguarding. There have been a number of fairly recent high-profile failures by charities to ensure adequate safeguarding. In early 2018, the Department for International Development called for assurances from aid ... Continue reading

Trustees’ Legal DutiesThe role of a trustee of any charity (“trustee”) is an honorary one, i.e. it is unpaid, and it is often supposed that trustees therefore have few or no legal duties. This is far from the actual position.All trustees have numerous legal duties, as outlined in our Guidance Note on Charity Trustees’ Duties, Re ... Continue reading

In Part One, we covered a number of technical charity law issues examined in the Law Commission Report of 14 September 2017. This note deals with further issues dealt with in that Report.Making Regulation of Charity Land Transactions Less of a BurdenWhen a charity sells, lets, or mortgages its land, it is subject to restrictions ... Continue reading

The Law Commission published a Report on 14 September 2017 on various technical issues in charity law, focussing on areas where there is inappropriate regulation of charities and any unnecessary legal complexity and inconsistency. It aims to remove or adjust the legal and regulatory burden on charities, whilst still safeguarding ... Continue reading

One of the major risks faced by UK charities is loss of data. “Loss” includes wrongful transfer, disclosure, corruption, or deletion of data, or wrongful access to data. Charities often hold large amounts of personal data, some of which is particularly sensitive. It may relate to donors or supporters, beneficiaries or service us ... Continue reading

Damage to a charity’s reputation often diminishes the level of trust in the charity on the part of its donors and supporters, leading to a decline in funding. Reputation of a charity is a key influencing factor in a prospective donor’s decision to donate to that charity. Damage to ReputationReputational damage can arise fro ... Continue reading

There are five major risks to the wellbeing (or even the existence) of small charities in the UK: decline in funding and donations, damage to reputation, inadequate insurance cover, loss of data, and fraud.FundingIn this post, we are focusing on funding. Many small charities are in crisis due to lack of adequate income. On avera ... Continue reading

The House of Lords Select Committee noted in its recent Report “Stronger Charities for a Stronger Society” (March 2017, available here) that registered charities in England and Wales with an annual income of less than £100,000 make up almost three quarters of the sector.These smaller charities contribute significantly to the wel ... Continue reading

To remain financially stable in today’s competitive climate, a charity needs to run its operations with business-like standards.Just like a business, many not-for-profit organisations have a board of directors, executives, human resources personnel and a marketing department. So why run a charity differently from a business just ... Continue reading

Whilst the public supports UK charities with generous donations to help them provide a huge benefit to the community, many charities – some of them household names – have increasingly maximised their fundraising using methods which the public find unacceptable. It appears from the way that some charities act that they consider t ... Continue reading