wanting to create 3 community projects, unsure of legalities ?

MadRatters

I have been eager to assist my community for a while now, but I am uncertain if there are any legal requirements that I should meet before initiating these projects?

I would appreciate donations, which will only be used to purchase the necessary supplies.

One of my plans is to provide 'period' kits to girls, women, and homeless women. These kits would include day and night period pads, wet wipes, tissues, nappy bags for disposal, and perhaps a small bag of sweets.

For homeless women, the kits would have all of the above and include deodorant, toothbrushes, toothpaste, waterless shampoo, and waterless soap. I plan to place these kits in public toilets and distribute them to homeless individuals to make them more accessible to women who need them.

Another initiative is to install a weatherproof box in our local dog field and fill it with nappy bags to encourage people to clean up after their pets. Many people leave dog waste on the ground, and locals have started tying bags to the gate, which become unusable when they get wet.

Additionally, I aim to launch an online campaign to encourage people to support farmers in the UK. After watching a series about a famous person owning a farm, I became disgusted with how the government, consumers, agribusiness/middlemen, and supermarkets treat farmers.

tacpot12

There are a number of different legal structures that you might create in order to raise money and undertake the activities you want to undertake. You would need to research all the options and consider the pros and cons of each before deciding which route you want to go. 

You should also check for charities that are already working in the areas that you want to support and consider how your efforts would be different and better. It might be better to either fund raise or volunteer for one of those charities (either on their front-line or a trustee), rather than starting your own organisation. 

One final observation is that all three of your ideas a quite different, and will appeal to different audiences of donors and volunteers. I would strongly recommend that you focus on one initiative at a time, and build a sustainable structure for that initiative that does not require your day-to-day involvement before moving onto the next idea.  

tacpot12

I'm sorry if my reply was a bit short, but it was quite late when I was replying. The advantage of picking a specific legal structure is that they you can be sure about the rules that apply to you. However, it is possible to just ask for money and spend it on good causes. One of the things you can't do is say you a Charity if you are not registered as a charity.

Experience shows that people who donate money expect there to be some governance about how the money is used, and may become upset if they find that there is no such governance. Without a governance structure money might be spent in a way that the donors did not intend when they gave it.

Ideally you need to have a very clear mandate as to what the organisation is trying to acheive. This is one reason why you should not try to combine ideas within one organisation. Any small organisation can really only focus on one thing at a time, so having a multitude of aims is very difficult.

These are the options that you seem to have for setting up an organisation are: 

• Charity
• Community Interest Company
• Company Limited by Guarantee 
• Community Benefit Society
• Unincorporated Organisation - just collecting money and spending it without any formal structure

You might have a read of the following webpage to find out about some of these: Not-for-profit organisations: 5 alternatives to charities | Vistra

The Community Benefit Society option is really only suitable if you have a business that you want to run to generate money to spend on good works. 

Of the options above, the least regulated is the unincorporated organisation. You would not be able to get a bank account in the name of the organisation.

The next least regulated is the Company Limited by Guarantee. This would allow you to get a bank account in the name of the organisation, and so keep money seperate from your own finances. The Company's Articles of Association can record the object of the company. Often the advice is to keep this quite general, but in the case of a charitable organisation, my advice would be to make it very specific, and only change the articles via a minuted board meeting, and having thought about the implications of any change carefully.

I would recommend getting at least one other person involved in setting up the organisation, they might be a friend or confidant, but they can help keep you focused on the specific mission you set out in the articles. They should only be a director/guarantor if they want this responsibility and are prepared to fall out with you if you are not running the organisation correctly. 

Savvy_Sue

Can only add to tacpot12's excellent posts by saying that there are already charities and organisations tackling period poverty, sometimes by supplying products to eg groups working with homeless people.

There may be issues with just placing products in public toilets: not least because there may not be anywhere to put them!

theoretica

Yes - as well as financial structure, you need to meet requirements for actually doing what you set out to - will the owners of the toilets/land let you put things there?