[Closed] We're setting up a charity......

Just in case......

Hey, I know of a local charity called Brocheck set up here in East Devon. Similar thing to what you've said and similar circumstances. She set it up after her brother took his own life.
If you want I can give her an email and put you in touch?

No idea about setting up a charity, but very best of luck with it!

Can you affiliate yourself with an existing charity?

This might let you use their existing infrastructure and share the costs rather than setting up a call centre and response unit from scratch. I should imagine that would be a large part of your costs if it is to be effective in fast responses as people have their crisis moment at all times of night and day.

The guys who now run the Big Bike Bash set up a charity top manage that event. I deliberately chose not to be part of it as I could not commit the time and also knew that I did not want to be tied to a single cause. If you contact them via the Big Bike Bash website they might be able to help, but as I say, I am not part of that so cannot promise anything.

I mostly just give money I raise to an existing charity such as UK Youth in the BBB case. I appreciate that this is not what you are aiming to do but it might be worth talking with Talk to the Samaritans, Shout Crisis Text Line, Rethink Mental Illness, Mind or whoever is close to your objectives.

We have a local charity in the village with a similar background, they may be able to offer some advice or maybe just give you ideas

https://www.willgarveytrustfoundation.org.uk/

If you haven't already looked for 'official' guidance...
https://www.gov.uk/setting-up-charity

I've no idea how you go about setting it up or managing to keep funding flowing as a start up, but best of luck getting it going anyway.

IIRC you are based in Carmarthenshire. It might be worth contacting Carmarthenshire Association of Voluntary Services https://cavs.org.uk/ - who should be able to provide you with some advice and resources particularly around drafting Memorandum & Articles which are the governing documents of the charity.

If you're in another area of Wales there are some links on this site - https://thirdsectorsupport.wales/contact/

As mentioned above the Charity Commission has lots of information about how to set up a charity. If you are going to do it properly you should think about being an incorporated body, and probably the best and easiest way to do this is to set up as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). You will need to appoint some trustees (who will be volunteer board members), and you also need to think about how you are going to provide the freephone/text support whether you use paid staff (which can't be trustees) or other volunteers.

You will also have to do things like set up a bank account etc. and if you are hoping for donations to set up a Gift Aid account.

My instinct is that it would be difficult to do all this by February when your gig is happening as its quite an involved process and Christmas/New Year will slow things down.

The other thing you might consider is finding out whether there is a similar bereavement support organisation in your part of Wales and use the fundraising to support them, and maybe you and your father could get involved more fully in that charity. One of the issues the charity sector faces is lots of people or groups setting up a charity motivated by their own personal experiences, when there are other charities already established providing a similar service, and you end up with lots of small, inefficient charities all with their own staff and all chasing the same funds - just something to think about, but maybe where you are there is no other support available.

HTH

The other thing you might consider is finding out whether there is a similar bereavement support organisation in your part of Wales and use the fundraising to support them, and maybe you and your father could get involved more fully in that charity. One of the issues the charity sector faces is lots of people or groups setting up a charity motivated by their own personal experiences, when there are other charities already established providing a similar service, and you end up with lots of small, inefficient charities all with their own staff and all chasing the same funds – just something to think about, but maybe where you are there is no other support available.

I would be thinking about this very seriously - and I know Philby has a lot of experience in the charity sector. Your instinct to want to do something is absolutely understandable and absolutely brilliant, but you possibly need to consider whether setting up your own charity is the most effective way of doing that

That is basically a better description of what I meant with "Can you affiliate yourself with an existing charity?"

The charities may be willing to set up / publicise a specific initiative which you / your Dad will drive to raise awareness and money for your own very personal cause within their overall umbrella of support.

This would mean that most of your money raised goes to providing the support and services you want to provide rather than on admin costs and set-up fees.

The early years of the Big Bike Bash were run like this. It was clearly a separate event from the UK Youth main charity events and I had almost total freedom to operate but at the end of it I just gave a chunk of money to UK Youth.

I appreciate your desires are different in that you are looking to provide a service rather than just money but is there a similar service already in operation that you can add to or run in parallel with to share costs?

Gnusmas - is this not essentially what the samaritans do? Not wanting to knock or criticise your plans, especially as I am sure they are an important part of the grieving process - but are you going to be able to do something better than they do with years or experience, training, legacy income, etc. I've never set up a charity before, but I've been a charity trustee for an established one, and in some regards its easy, but in others its a pita and a load of work.

I'm not sure how you are planning to fund it and keep it going. To my mind there are two types of small charity:

- the ones that do the delivery / execution (or campaigning). They get their main funding from other organisations / trusts / lottery / government etc.
- charitable trusts / foundations - who raise funds (or have investment profits from a legacy / previous donations) and give them out to other groups for short term or long term projects, either as complete or matched funding.

There are of course organisations that do both - but unless you've lots of resources I'd suggest you try to do one or the other (obviously to do the first you may still need an initial campaign to kick start things).

You probably want some advice from a lawyer or accountant who's looked at the options before, e.g., if you will be raising money from donations gift aid, can make a big difference but will have specific rules. If the charity will employ staff, you will have different risks from it giving money to others who do etc.

This sounds a little bit back to front, you have arranged the launch without actually having a charity to launch. I would echo what others have said, can you flip your launch event into a fundraising event towards another, established, charity that you can formally align with and support?

@poly has spoken well on this. @gnusmus I think you ought to take note and consider.

I have been involved with setting up charities and am also a trustee of a charity. Ultimately you need professional advice from charity law, accountancy, insurance etc specialists before even starting down the road. Incorporating and successfully operating a charity is a complicated, time consuming affair, and potentially expensive depending on the income streams. Certainly not something to be bumbled through with random advice from strangers on the internet. I would go as far as to say that if you are currently at the potential idea for a charity stage there is absolutely no chance that the thing will be incorporated by February.
Without meaning to sound harsh, who will be manning the phonelines of your proposed charity? Who will be training them?

As already said, think hard about offering your services to an existing charity providing the same service to at least gain more understanding of what is required.

Good luck.
Somethings you will need to consider:
What’s the purpose of the charity? And are others already working in that area? If so what differentiates you?
- if there is insufficient “uniqueness” to what you are doing you will:
- struggle to be permitted to register (actually the charity commission in England will register anything)
- struggle to build and maintain a viable funding stream.

Who are the beneficiaries? This needs to be clearly articulated.

Impact and evidence. How are you going to demonstrate evidence of effective delivery of your aims?

Governance. Who is accountable for what?

Business plan.

You can start a charity without the advice of a “professional”. But you might struggle unless you are very knowledgeable of what is required. You will need to have a clear plan for business sustainability.

Hiya, charity professional here, done some finance directoring, chief executiving, company secretarial and trusteeing so may be able to help. Happy to talk and provide any help I can, PM me (is that still a thing on here?)

My take on the preceding couple of comments FWIW is that you don't necessarily need paid for professional advice, but you do need good advice.

Lots of successful, small charities out there that can't afford to run things past lawyers at £100s per hour, that said lots of small charities also get into avoidable pickles due to lack of experience and knowledge, and some fail as a result.

Hi there, charity trustee, treasurer and volunteer here. Firstly you have a great idea. Secondly you have some individuals committed to making it work. Thirdly you have shown that you can get things started. Well done to all concerned.
As you have recognised there is not much time between now and your event in February. IMHO you should prioritise:
1. Agree on clear aims and objectives
2. Set up a bank account, Facebook page with link to Paypal or a Just Giving page
3. Focus on your event. There is always more to do than you'll have thought of at the moment.
Once the event is over consider carefully whether to join forces with an existing charity or to set up your own. If joining up with another charity they would have to be in a position to fully support your stated aims. If going it alone then ICO is the way to go - but it takes some time to set up.
Again IMHO it is important to keep the momentum and not to split your focus. Make the event in Feb a resounding success and take it from there. All the very best to you and your family.

Just re-reading the details of where you are up to and a quick heads up to make sure your IG is in some sort of order. You can sort out the details of bank signatories when you're ready to open a bank account, but by the sounds of things you're far enough into organising an event that you're likely already handling data that would come under the DPA / GDPR so it would be wise to get things in order there forthwith if you aren't already sighted on it.