Charity Commission releases dormant money for local charities
Howard Lake | 29 October 2003 | News
Money in dormant bank accounts has been donated to charities in Bristol and South Gloucestershire by the Charity Commission.
Following a successful pilot project to find money held in dormant charity accounts and
release it to local charities, the Charity Commission has distributed £20,000.
Ten local organisations have each received £2,000 from charity accounts
which had been inactive for many years.
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Jon Thorne, the Charity Commission’s Official Custodian for Charities, said: “I’d like to thank the local media for doing an
excellent job encouraging local charities to come forward to claim this money.”
Steve Carpenter, chairman of the Avon Sport and Leisure Club for the Visually Impaired agreed. “We’re really glad we heard about the dormant account project as the
money will help us improve our services for the visually impaired. As this programme develops, we hope more banks and building societies will come on board in helping to identify dormant charity accounts.”
The Commission estimates there could be more than a million pounds in dormant charity accounts held with banks and building societies, and this release is the first of what it hopes will be many more such
success stories.
Using the powers in section 28 of the Charities Act 1993 the Commission makes reasonable enquiries to locate any of the charity trustees of a dormant account. Should these enquiries fail to locate
a trustee, the Commission looks for suitable outlets for applying this money towards charitable purposes. This usually means charities with similar objectives.
The Charity Commission publishes details of the dormant account project online, including which charities are currently the object of proposed transfers.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.