Charities are created to meet particular social and economic needs. Those needs are likely to change over time and charities should adapt to continue being relevant and effective to those they are meant to serve.
These questions help you to review whether your charity is still fit for purpose.
1. Is the charity still capable of carrying out its objects?
Are there still enough people who can properly benefit from the charity? Is the nature of the benefit/service offered by the charity relevant to modern needs?
2. Could the charity's assets be more efficiently/effectively used in conjunction with another similar charity?
Is the scale of the charity's assets too small to achieve sufficient impact on their own? Is the cost of administering the assets out of proportion to the size of those assets?
3. If the charity has permanent endowment capital, would it be useful to be able to spend all or some of the capital as income?
Eg if the charity is small and you want to wind it up.
4. Are the trustee arrangements still appropriate?
Is it still in the charity's interest for the charity trustee/custodian trustee to be the local authority? Would it be useful to have some/all independent trustees? Would the charity benefit from having user trustees?
5. Does the charity have all the administrative arrangements and powers it needs?
Does the governing document allow you to do the things that you need to do to run the charity effectively?
6. Does the charity have the appropriate legal form?
If it is an unincorporated body, would it be suitable to set up a new charity that is a corporate body to which its assets could be transferred?
See also: