New guidance on setting up and registering a charity

The Charity Commission has published revised guidance on setting up and registering a charity.

The core guidance on how to set up a charity is designed as a practical and concise how-to guide, broken down into seven steps. It is accompanied by more detailed guidance on writing charitable purposes, choosing a charity name, recruiting trustees and applying to register.

The Commission has also published revised guidance on charity types: how to choose a structure and on how to write your governing document.

The Commission hopes the user-friendly format will encourage people to think carefully before setting up a charity, with the guidance suggests alternatives to creating a new charity, including volunteering for an existing charity, setting up a named donor fund with a Community Foundation or establishing a charitable trust with the Charities Aid Foundation. 

The guidance on how to register a charity explains the registration process, with its purpose to help ensure applicants better understand the process and improve the quality of applications.

The Commission states that the most commonly made mistakes in applications include not providing sufficient information to enable the regulator to make a registration decision and poorly drafted charitable purposes. An organisation's purposes are key to deciding whether or not it is a charity.

Their guidance on how to write charitable purposes explains how to write purposes to make it clear what the charity is set up to achieve, how it will achieve it, who will benefit and where.

Alongside the guidance on setting up and registering a charity, the Commission has published a guide that explains how it makes registration decisions, to help applicants understand how they need to provide full and complete information about their organisation and what happens after they have submitted their application.

The Commission has also launched an updated online application form, which will help applicants to identify and set out all the necessary information about their charity upfront and is designed to reduce post-application correspondence. The Commission states that the updated form should make the process more straightforward for applicants, while also making better use of the Commission's own resources.

Between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014, the Commission received 6,661 registration applications. During the same period, it approved 4,968 applications.

To access the guidance on how to set up a charity visit www.charitycommission.gov.uk/start-up-a-charity/setting-up-a-charity/how-to-set-up-a-charity-%28cc21a%29.

To access the guidance on how to choose a charity structure www.charitycommission.gov.uk/start-up-a-charity/setting-up-a-charity/charity-types-how-to-choose-a-structure-%28cc22a%29.

To access the guidance on how to write a governing document visit www.charitycommission.gov.uk/start-up-a-charity/setting-up-a-charity/how-to-write-your-governing-document-%28cc22b%29.

To access the guidance on how to register a charity visit www.charitycommission.gov.uk/start-up-a-charity/registering-your-charity/how-to-register-your-charity-%28cc21b%29.

To access the guidance on how write a charitable purposes visit www.charitycommission.gov.uk/start-up-a-charity/setting-up-a-charity/how-to-write-charitable-purposes.

To access the guidance on how the Charity Commission makes registration decisions visit www.charitycommission.gov.uk/our-regulatory-work/how-we-register-charities.