Charity begins at home

Discussion
1

Are we a charity or a CIC (community interest company)?

I think we qualify as a charity possibly under the “advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science”. You could say we provide a “public benefit”. With more workshops and outreach this would be easier to demonstrate.

If that’s a stretch then we are probably actually a CIC.

Legal Stuff
There are only really two requirements we need to meet to be a charity (plus I think we would need two trustees that don’t use the space):

1:purpose
Is our purpose one of the following?

"a) the prevention or relief of poverty

(b)the advancement of education

© 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, by reason 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) any other purposes currently recognised as charitable or which can be recognised as charitable by analogy to, or within the spirit of, purposes falling within (a) to (l) or any other purpose recognised as charitable under the law of England and Wales"

2:public benefit requirement
Do we provide a public benefit?

"There are two aspects of public benefit:
The benefit aspect and the public aspect.

to satisfy the ‘benefit aspect’ of public benefit:

a purpose must be beneficial
any detriment or harm that results from the purpose must not outweigh the benefit

To satisfy the ‘public aspect’ of public benefit the purpose must:

benefit the public in general, or a sufficient section of the public
not give rise to more than incidental personal benefit
Guidance on the public benefit requirement"

2

Well, to give a literal answer: we’re a Company Limited by Guarantee.

But it’s been talked about. And @peter_hellyer has some experience/interest in this as has been mentioned elsewhere.

This comes very much under the governance discussion of course.

3

I guess I meant what do we see ourselves as ultimately rather than currently.

That is probably a case of definition rather than choice.

Just wanted to get a conversation going about that. Rather than actually taking a lead on it.

4

Depends what we want to be.

To be a makerspace, then we’re fine as we are. If we have global ambitions…

5

What are we and how does that definition label us in the eyes of the law?

Is there anything we would change if it meant that definition changed?

Yes! Very much about governance.

6

We’re currently a company limited by guarantee. That’s a specific kind of company that works well for member owned organisations such as ours. Dermot is correct that this functions well for the purpose of what we’re doing.

In short, In the eyes of the law this makes makerspace a private company, owned by its members.

A bunch of things would have to change if we re-shaped to be a governmentally recognised non-profit, not least of which is that the formal ‘ownership’ of the organisation would need to be revised. It may well be however that we and the community at large may generate a better benefit from a more formal arrangement of makerspace as a non-profit.

7

I know :blush::blush::blush:

The question of the thread was more about identifying the requirements needed to become a charity. Or CIC. (But it assumed the reader saw our definition as theoretical rather than actual - doh!)

Off topic:
Ild say buy the Adobe Suite then​:blush::blush:
Okay okay illustrator then :blush::blush:

1 Like
8

Will this be in the agenda of discussion at the meeting on Tuesday?

9

Yes, I think so. However this specifically is all a bit theoretical, we need to do a shed load more work to move to a more concrete place on this topic.

10

I think it’s a bit too long term for Tuesday’s meeting, plus we forked off governance previously, and as has been said this is very much governance.

11

I think we can discuss the theroy before doing anything concrete. That’s the good thing about theories.

Drop all assumptions and investigate our possibilities in debate.

  • what are we in terms of our current definition (as apposed to what we want to be or what the paper work says) probably a CIC
  • what do we want to be and what would we have to do to get there. Probably a charity but more easily a CIC. We would only have to prove the two points outlined in the opening thread and the rest is admin.
    “Public benefit” is vague and probably enabled by meeting the first requirement. So our whole charitable status probably hinges on our “purpose”.
12

I was thinking the same thing. Plus the agenda looks pretty full already.

13

In all work I’ve done with Makerspaces we should definitely not become a CIC.

14

Could you add some context pls?

15

there are long complicated explaianations, but in short it’s no more useful a model than the one we currently have :slight_smile:

16

This is the flow chart the government uses to work out if somethings a charity or not:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/359632/cc4textannexc.pdf

17

LHS spent 8 months applying for, and failing to get, charitable status.

http://www.hackspace.org.uk/wiki/Charitable_status

It’s by no means a clear-set thing, but their experience is a useful data point.

18

Certainly an enlightening read. There’s some overarching and important things we’d need to consider for sure.

19

Really?

I’ve owned several companies over the years.
It used to be very complicated.
Nowadays it’s all online and technically setting up a company is on a par with setting up an Amazon account.

Even the guild lines that help you decide what type of company you are are very helpful know a days. Simple to follow steps outlining everything down to flow charts of the decision making process.

It’s never been easier.

20

It is very difficult to give context when it’s based on dozens of conversations with people who run open workshops all over the UK and Ireland.

I’ve repeatedly got the impression from talking to folks that CIC isn’t right for our organisation.

Also interestingly they’ve changed the way charity status works to accommodate the gap that CIC was meant to fill, but again not that up on it.

I am not sure why you would choose a CIC over a Charity anyway.