Charities have received over £32 million from dormant trusts
Melanie May | 6 July 2020 | News
Charities have received a total of £32 million from dormant trusts through the Revitalising Trusts programme since 2018, it has been announced, with the programme now funded to run until 2021.
The Revitalising Trusts programme is managed by the Charity Commission and UK Community Foundations, with funding from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). It aims to help inactive or ‘ineffective’ charities either get back up and running, or redeploy their dormant funds to other good causes.
The programme classes charities that have had no income or expenditure for the last five as inactive, with those that have spent less than 30% of their total income over the last five years classed as ineffective.
Once identified as dormant, the Commission gives the trustees an option to accept support to help them get back up and running. Alternatively, the funds are redeployed to causes in line with the aims of the dormant charity or the trust is transferred to a local community foundation to be managed for the long-term benefit of local communities.
The programme began in January 2018 and has contacted over 1,800 charities to date. The Commission has so far removed 179 charities from the register – 67 since lockdown – transferring funds to similar charities, to local Community Foundations or to UK Community Foundations, and revitalised 26 charities.
It has now secured funding from DCMS until March 2021 and will target around 500 more inactive trusts in the year ahead.
Baroness Stowell, Chair of the Charity Commission, said:
“I am delighted that we have helped to release £32 million of dormant charitable funds. The charities, which for some time were inactive or ineffective, that have come forward willingly to assist with this important programme have done a great public service and we are hugely grateful to them. But this shared effort to revitalise charitable funds and deliver the donors’ intended benefit to society has the potential to go even further – and it’s needed now more than ever.
“The Charity Commission is calling on trustees of charities that have funds and are inactive or unable to make the difference they once did or had hoped to achieve, to come forward now so that the charity money they hold doesn’t sit idle, but can be put to good use by other charities with similar causes supporting people and communities at this time of heightened need.”
Rosemary Macdonald, CEO of UK Community Foundations, said:
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“Community foundations are embedded in their communities and have years of experience working with local trust funds and philanthropists. Community foundations are helping to modernise old trusts and get them back into action – all at a time when our voluntary sector desperately needs financial support to get through this difficult crisis.”
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.