Dog hydrotherapy charity

chucknorris

My dog is 11.5 years old now (Lab/Springer cross) and is really slowing down now, he can walk slowly but can’t manage stairs now. I have been thinking that swimming would help him with future mobility problems. I was firstly only thinking of my dog and asked how much it was, our local hydrotherapy pool is £30 a session (incl. VAT), or £330 for a course of 12 sessions, so approx £3,000 a year.

I’ve started to think that rather than leave a substantial amount to the dogs trust when I die, it might be better to start up a dog hydrotherapy pool as a charity now. I can always leave it to teh dogs trust when I die. That way I will enjoy the benefit of seeing it in operation, and obviously my dog (and other dogs) will also benefit, and I would be saving about £3,000 a year for an unknown number of years, so some clawback there.

Putting my mercenary hat on, I would be interested to explore how I could recuperate part of this cost/donation(s), obviously I can make the tax man a 40% partner, is there anything else could I do?. I also would certainly want to try and make the charity be financially self supporting after the initial investment. I don’t have experience in this field and wondered if anyone could come up with some helpful hints?

guyrandom

Hi chucknorris,

Your charity souds like a wonderful idea and it's a wonderful way to leave a legacy with direct local impact too. If only more people were like you!

I work for a large charity and I know that even starting a small one needs a lot of planning and research. Your best bet is to look at the Charity Commision website who have a wonderful and in-depth guide to starting a small charity which will take so many headaches and a lot of hours of google searching out of the equation.

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Charity_requirements_guidance/Specialist_guidance/Small_charities/default.aspx

Please keep us updated with your progress and feel free to PM me once you are started for fundraising and promotion ideas!

Local dogs are going to love you

guyrandom

This section on Charity Essentials is very useful too.

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Charity_requirements_guidance/Charity_essentials/default.aspx

Savvy_Sue

Do check too that there isn't already a charity for pet hydrotherapy, on which you might be able to piggy back IYSWIM.

heretolearn_2

One point - you say you want to set up a charity and leave it to Dogs Trust when you die.

No-one 'owns' a charity, so it cannot be left in a will. So, you need to decide whether this will be a charity, or a business you'll own. If it's a charity, you will be a Trustee or Director, but your involvement and influence ends when you cease to act in that role, for whatever reason. And you still don't 'own' it - you can be removed as Director or Trustee, for example. A charity is its own independent entity.

And, you are assuming the Dog's Trust would want to continue running it anyway. Perhaps they would, perhaps they wouldn't. Speak to them before making any plans along these lines.

It's a nice idea in theory, but you have to start thinking about the practicalities of your plan first. I would think the first thing is to find out if an animal charity would be interested in taking on a project like this at some time in the future.

And then you need to do some research into how charities work, and businesses work, to make an informed decision on which is possible and the best option here.

For example you say the taxman would be a 40% partner in a charity - what is it you are thinking of here because I can't think of anything really... unless you mean that as a 40% tax payer you think there's a way of funding it with it only costing you 60% getting tax reliefs on your income on the rest. The only tax directly ties into charity funding is gift aid, and while yes the charity could claim some on your donations once established, and yes as a higher tax payer you also personally can claim some tax relief, even if you re-donate what you get in tax relief it's all getting a bit circular there and won't add up to the whole 40%.

Also your own dog getting free treatment - are you thinking the charity would offer free treatment to all, or would it be related to the income of the owners? You cannot get the use of the charity on a different basis to other users, without setting this up very carefully, as for trustees or directors to get personal benefits from the charity they run is a tightly regulated area. From your VAT comment, it sounds as if you were intending to make charges for the services, again there are restrictions on charities doing this. It is possible, but you have to take 'public benefit' into account and no one can be excluded if they can't afford to pay. And if you are charging, then you shouldn't be using the facilities free for yourself.

stephenni1971

From a purely selfish point of view should anyone ask me for a donation for a dog hydrotherapy charity I would give them a polite NO.

There are a lot of charities out there and although its a personal thing for you it's not really going to be high on most peoples priorities.

I think fundraising will be difficult and there is no guarantee anyone would want to continue with it once you are gone.