[cma-l] Charity limited company

[Two Lochs Radio]

<<You can talk to the Charity Commission about registering as a charity but be aware that they seem reluctant to bestow charitable status on organisations that seem to exist to 'entertain' regardless of your social aims - thus Jaqui's comment about charitable aims in your existing Mem & Arts.  Indeed, I'd recommend having the same front and centre of your constitution, web site etc before approaching the Charity Commission.  We had recent experience that suggests that, in spite of the precedents mentioned, there is not an open door for community radio stations to become charities unless they box clever from the outset.>>

I'd echo that sentiment entirely. We had a lot of problems with the Scottish Charity regulator OSCR not wanting to register the Highlands & Islands Community Broadcasting Federation as a charity, and after a lot of delay it turned out to be because OSCR assumed wrongly that it was itself a radio station, rather than a support, training and education body supporting all the community stations.

They seemed to have a very strong opinion that almost whatever its motives, running a radio station was not a charitable activity. Once they realized that our primary activity was support of the stations operating for community benefit (which had been there in the constitution in writing all the time) it all changed and they were happy to register us. 

We didn't have to change our constitution's objectives at all, they were already perfectly proper for a charity, but the fact that we were associated with radio broadcasting somehow seemed to blind the regulator to the facts of the situation at first look.

Alex
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