For almshouse, relief-in-need and welfare charities
For charities whose work is helping people who ask
A confidential register of everybody who has asked for help, what the trustees decided and why. Investment income and the accounts that go with it. And the trustee records of a charity whose trustees have often served a very long time.
Free for 30 days, no card needed. Then £5 a month or £50 a year, everything included.
What a grant-giving charity has to get right
The money is usually the easy part. Fairness, privacy and a record that outlasts the clerk are the hard ones.
- Decisions about people need to be consistent. A widow asked for help with a boiler two years ago; a family asks for the same this month. The trustees want to know what was decided last time and why - without anybody's name being read out at the meeting.
- The income comes from investments, not appeals. Dividends, interest and rents arrive on their own timetable. The question is not how to raise more but whether the year's income will cover the year's grants and running costs.
- Trustees serve for a very long time. Some for decades. Terms of office lapse without anybody noticing, and the declarations of interest were last written down when the rector before last was chair.
- The clerk holds it all together. And the minute book, the cheque stubs and the investment statements are in the clerk's study. When the clerk retires, so does the charity's memory.
What The Charity Office does for a welfare charity
A confidential register of grants given
Each applicant gets a reference you can say aloud at a meeting. Their request, the signed form, the trustees' decision, the reasons - a decision cannot be saved without them - and the letter you sent are kept together, with names, addresses and reasons stored encrypted.
The decisions register
Every request from everybody side by side, with the amounts and reasons in one column, so the trustees can see that similar requests were treated alike. A filter finds any cheque that was written but never reached the accounts.
The cheque, and the books
Record the cheque number, its date and the two trustees who signed it. One action puts the payment into the accounts as a grant awarded, under its reference and without the person's name, so the accounts can be shown to people who should not know who was helped.
Investment income and more than one account
Dividends and interest recorded as investment income, a deposit or savings account alongside the current account, and the investment statements kept on their own shelf in Documents.
Trustee terms and declarations of interest
When each term ends, with an email to the chair and secretary ninety days ahead, and each trustee's declarations of interest, dated.
Charitable spending set apart from running costs
Mark the grants you give as charitable spending and the year-on-year page shows them apart from the cost of running the charity, as a share of your income - the figure a charity is judged on.
What it costs
£5 a month, or £50 a year
One price with everything in it: the money, the forecast, the trustees, the meetings, the compliance records, the grants and the GDPR records. No charge per trustee, and the charity is billed rather than whoever signed up, so the subscription stays put when the committee changes.
Questions people ask
Does it manage our almshouses, residents or tenancies?
No. There is nothing for tenancies, weekly maintenance contributions by resident, or repairs to the properties. It keeps the charity's money, trustees, meetings, grant decisions and compliance paperwork. Contributions can be recorded as income in total, under your own heading.
Who can see the grant-giving records?
Owners, administrators, the treasurer, the secretary and trustees can read them, and trustees cannot change them. A volunteer login never shows that the section exists.
Can we record calls and letters with an applicant?
Yes. Each applicant has a correspondence list for every call, letter and visit, with who noted it and when, stored encrypted.
Can the clerk run it without being a trustee?
Yes. The clerk can have an administrator's login, which does everything except the charity's subscription. Logins and the trustee register are separate lists.
Does it value our investments?
No. It records the income they produce and keeps the statements, but it does not hold a portfolio or track its value.
Start the register with this year's requests
Start free, add the people who have asked this year and what was decided, and read the reasons down one column.