Charity governance and commercial

Enquiry form Charity law non profit team

How our charity governance and commercial solicitors can help you

Getting charity governance right

All charities need an up-to-date constitution and governance policy to enable trustees to manage their charity effectively and stay compliant. Our specialist charity solicitors can work with you to make sure your documents are clear, flexible and reflect best practice.

If your charity is unincorporated we can help you decide whether to incorporate, given the risks your organisation bears. Our charity solicitors also work with charities with less common structures, including Royal Charter corporations and Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies.

We can carry out a bespoke charity governance review and help you implement change. We provide trustee training and updates, to help trustees understand their legal duties and identify best practice.

Charity law

Some charities have complex arrangements for holding assets. We help charities make best use of assets held subject to permanent endowment. We can help you identify opportunities to make changes and obtain Charity Commission schemes and orders.

Supporting your operations

We seek to understand your charity’s ambitions and business model and help protect assets and mitigate risks arising from your charity’s activities. We advise on all types of commercial agreements and help charities negotiate contracts and identify and apportion risk.

We also help charities protect their brands and intellectual property and ensure they comply with the law, regulation and best practice in fundraising activities. Following the establishment of the Fundraising Regulator and changes in data protection law, we are assisting many clients to meet the requirements when they obtain and hold data.

Collaborations and mergers

Charities often collaborate and increasingly this requires a more formal approach, whether establishing a joint venture or entering into a collaboration or consortium agreement. We understand the dynamics of working with other organisations, while ensuring each charity preserves its identity.

We regularly advise on charity mergers and understand the sensitivities that can arise. We help guide trustees and executive teams on the process, from initial discussions to considering future governance structures to implementation.

Working overseas

We also have particular experience helping international and not for profit charities and charities that conduct work overseas.

Charging information

Transparent and flexible charging solutions for charity governance and commercial matters

Charges are usually based on hourly rates plus administrative charges and disbursements but we are flexible with regard to charging rates and will discuss with you budgets for work on a particular matter, or, where it is not entirely clear how things will develop, for the initial stages or a particular stage of a matter. We will always provide you with an initial estimate of your likely legal costs and will update this as your requirements or the circumstances of the work change.

In circumstances where we can more or less either anticipate the work to be done or prescribe the work, we can act on a fixed or capped fee basis.

We would be pleased to discuss your requirements free of charge and tailor a costs proposal accordingly.

It is fundamental to our policy on allocating work that one of the factors we will consider is the likely cost outcome of using particular solicitors for particular pieces of work. Whilst almost invariably a partner will be able to carry out work more quickly than a less experienced solicitor, a less experienced solicitor under appropriate supervision may be able to produce a more cost effective result. Partner input is more likely to be appropriate and cost-effective in more complex or more specialised matters.

Get in touch

If you would like to speak with a member of the team you can contact our charity law solicitors by email, by telephone on +44 (0)20 3826 7510 or complete our enquiry form.

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