Promotion of voluntary sector to be a new charitable purpose
Howard Lake | 14 October 2004 | News
The Charity Commission has accepted the promotion of the voluntary sector for the benefit of the public as a new charitable purpose.
Organisations that promote the voluntary sector can now be recognised as charities, according to new ./guidance from the Charity Commission.
It gives examples of bodies which would now qualify for charitable status:
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- a local resource body which co-ordinates black and minority ethnic or lesbian and gay voluntary organisations;
- an organisation which identifies needs in the voluntary sector and establishes projects or policies to address them;
- an organisation providing a database of information about charities.
The Charity Commission’s head of charitable status policy Joanne Edwardes said: “The voluntary sector is an important part of today’s economy and adds immense value to the community as a whole.
“The efficiency and effectiveness of the charitable sector is something the public is concerned about and we have recognised for some time that organisations promoting this can themselves be charities. This new ./guidance sets out the criteria we will use to decide when such organisations are charitable. In particular, it sets out how we distinguish between a commercial provider of services to charities and a charitable provider.”
The new ./guidance is consistent with the description of charitable purposes in the draft Charities Bill, in particular the advancement of citizenship or community development.
The new purposes are described in Charity Commission publications RR13 and RR14.
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.