Charity law and fundraising

[Namaste]

Somebody I know is working on a project in Morocco, just setting it up and was asking me about fund raising (as that is one of my strengths).

I have only ever really done it for charities already registered and have looked up charity law and it says that you need to be making at least £5000 per year to be a registered charity.

Does that mean that you need £5000 upfront?

Can you fund raise without being a registered charity?

[**Helen**]

Hi Namaste,
I've spoken to one of our fundies at YouthNet about this and it sounds like you've the wrong end of the stick about registering - you don’t need to pay £5,000, you only need to register as a charity if your annual income is above £5,000 (http://charitycommission.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/charitycommission.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=113)

We're pretty sure you can fundraise without being a registered charity, but you will probably need to declare it somewhere – the Charity Commission site (http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/) is the best place to start for that info, or the Institute of Fundraising (http://www.institute-of-fundraising.org.uk/)

Hope this helps :)

[Franki]

I was talking to my mum the other day about this (kind of) because she does a Greyhound Walk which helps raise money for retired racers, and I asked her if she was going to register as a charity and she said no because:

Registering as a charity is really complicated, but that if you raise more than £5k per year you HAVE to register.