If you've just become a charity trustee, congratulations and welcome! We hope that you will find your role rewarding and fulfilling.
There will be some challenges and along with your fellow trustees, you'll be responsible for your charity's aims and direction, property, finances and the employment of any staff or volunteers.
This means that you'll have a duty to make sure your charity is financially secure, well-run and meets the requirements of both charity law and its own rules (its governing document).
This section gives an introduction to the resources available on this website to help you.
Where to start?
You should start by reading our key guidance for trustees:
This guidance, and much more, is available in our Charity Requirements and Guidance section. This contains all our guidance and other resources produced to help charities and their advisers.
What information do I have to send in?
Every year, all registered charities must complete an Annual Update. This meets your legal obligation to update your charity's Register details and to confirm that your charity is still operating.
What you'll need to send us depends on your charity's size. What information must trustees send us this year? explains what you need to send and how you can do this online.
Top tips
- Our online services make it easy to manage your charity. You will need a password for access, which we will send you. You can then send us annual updates and change your charity's details. You can also tell us which email addresses we should use to contact you as well as print a certificate confirming your charity's registration.
- Our Frequent questions database has the answers to over 400 common questions. To save time (and the cost of a phone call) you can search the database – it's likely you'll find the answer to your question there.
- Our email update service lets you know whenever important material is updated or added to our website. If an item looks interesting, simply click on it and you'll be taken to that page.
- You can view your charity's details on the Register of charities. Its advanced search lets you find other charities like yours or in your area.
- If you have a visual impairment our accessibility options mean you can increase the website's type size or change the colour scheme to make it easier to read.
Other useful info
- Charity governance explains the principles of good charity governance, and provides detailed guidance on managing charity resources and how to manage risk. It also provides links to resources on environmental issues.
- Manage your charity explains how you can use our online services to easily update the information we hold on your charity, in addition to sending us your Annual Returns, Trustees' Annual Reports and Accounts. It also provides guidance and online forms to make other administrative tasks easier.
- Our regulatory activity explains how we regulate charities, and the action we take when we believe there is a serious threat or risk to a charity's beneficiaries, services, assets or reputation. It also explains how we provide legal consent for certain types of change you might want to make to the way your charity operates.