Thematic report outlines why some bodies fail to be registered as charities

A new report by the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland has outlined the reasons why some charity registration applications fail.

Entitled, Refused entry to the register: understanding why, the report explains how the law is applied during the charity registration process.  

Case studies are included to give those applying for charity registration a sense of what is and isn’t a charity, and what has led to the Commission refusing 39 registration applications to date. There are now over 5,500 charities on the register.

Commission Chief Executive Frances McCandless said: “Refusal of entry onto the register of charities is rare and accounts for just 0.7% of charity registration applications.

“However there is much to learn from the instances where registration has been refused. Often the public may think an organisation is charitable as it doing what they view as good works, or something beneficial to society. However, it may not meet the criteria in the legislation which the Commission is tasked with implementing.

“We hope this report will be of use to the sector and to the public in understanding what is legally charitable.”