Check if setting up a charity is right for you
Before you set up a charity, you will need to work out the answers to the following questions:
1.Who is the charity intended to help and how?
In order to be a charity, your organisation will need to benefit the public. Even if it does benefit the public, it might not be charitable. When you understand who the charity is to be set up to help, and how it will help them, you will need to make sure it matches one of the ‘charitable purposes’ in the Charities Registration and Regulation Act 2019, for the public benefit.
The ‘charitable purposes’ are the following (or things which may reasonably fall within these headings):
(a) the prevention or relief of poverty
(b) the advancement of education
(c) the advancement of religion
(d) the advancement of health or the saving of lives
(e) the advancement of citizenship or community development
(f) the advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science
(g) the advancement of amateur sport
(h) the advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity
(i) the advancement of environmental protection or improvement
(j) the relief of those in need because of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage
(k) the advancement of animal welfare
(l) the promotion of the efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown or of the efficiency of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services
(m) other purposes under the Recreational Charities (Isle of Man) Act 1962 or section 2 of the Charities Act 1962, which includes recreational and similar trusts, and trusts for the purposes of benevolence, philanthropy or social welfare and gifts, devises, bequests or trusts for the proper repair, etc of private graves and monuments) or under existing charity law
Check our Guidance on Establishing and Registering a Charity.
2. Check if there is already a charity doing what you want to do
We always recommend that those wishing to set up a new charity check if there is already a charity with the same objectives (aims) that you could work together with. To meet the same aims, working together is often more effective and particularly in a small jurisdiction like the Isle of Man, two or more charities with the same or very similar aims, would not then have to compete for resources and support.
Check the Charities Register first, to see if there are other charities you might wish to work with. You might otherwise consider:
- Whether to raise funds for another charity as a supporter, rather than being a trustee of a new registered charity
- To ask an existing charity if you can work with or support them directly
- If you are considering a charity set up in someone’s name or memory, you could also approach existing charities to see if they could consider accepting any fundraising or donations in that person’s name, and commit it to a particular fund within their charity, for specific purposes (for example in the purchase of specific equipment, or refurbishment of a particular area or room, or for advancing education for a specific group of people)
Setting up a charity involves a lot of administrative work and organisation, and needs several people to share the work and commitment required to the ongoing governance and compliance if the charity is going to be run successfully.
