We are often approached by individuals and groups who are keen to start their own charity or community interest company; in fact this was one of the drivers for creating The Clare Foundation’s popular Charity Excellence Programme. We recognise that it can be difficult to understand which structure to choose for a fledgling not-for-profit and how to successfully secure funding for a new organisation. Over the last two years we have helped more than ten organisations create their new charity or social enterprise from scratch. We have enabled four CIOs to negotiate the Charity Commission process and achieve their charity registration successfully at their first attempt.
Wishing to share the advice and support we can offer with a larger audience, in June we invited our charity governance expert, Ian McClintock, the founder of Charity Excellence, to deliver two webinars for us. These sessions were hugely popular and well attended and we are pleased to be able to share the recordings of them through this blog.
How do I create a not-for-profit? Setting up a charity or CIC
In the first of the two webinars, we addressed the following points:-
- The key questions you must ask yourself, to decide which type of charity or CIC would suit you best
- An introduction to and the pros and cons of the various types
- Where you can go for help and support
The 4 steps to funding success – how to secure funding for your non-profit
The second webinar acknowledged that securing funding is now much more challenging than ever before, thanks to the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. We explored how to establish a fundraising program. This webinar explained the simple but key things a not-for-profit must get right and highlighted the importance of finding the right funders to apply to and how to create a case for support.
We are very grateful to Ian for sharing his knowledge and for kindly put together this list of resources: https://theclarefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Starting-a-non-profit-resource-pack-2.pdf
