Starting an organisation

The voluntary sector has experienced rapid growth since the early 1990s. The Charity Commission registered more than 450 charities each month in 2008/09, and many more do not register even though they have charitable aims.

Why set up an organisation?

People have many reasons for setting up an organisation. The most common motivation is to make a difference in people's lives by providing a service or campaigning to create change.

Setting up a new organisation is exciting, challenging and time consuming. It is not an automatic route to paid employment and trustees of charitable organisations cannot receive a salary. Competition for funds is intense. It is therefore important to be clear about what is involved before embarking on this journey.

 

Support Available

If you have decided already to start an organisation you may want to see Help with running your organisation.

There are sections on legal structures or registering as a charity.

LVSC offers the following services to new groups and organisations in the process of setting up:

• Advice services
• Ready Steady Start
• Funding information services

Download our introductory guide to starting up here:

StartingLVSC

Support from second tier organisations

Second tier organisations, also known as umbrella or infrastructure organisations, offer a range of services to help other organisations develop.

There are Council for Voluntary Service that work within a borough.

There are also specialist organisations like the Refugee Council,  Women's Resource Centre, Black Training and Enterprise Group (BTEG) and Advice UK. They provide a variety of services including information, one-to-one meetings, training, advice, mentoring and much more.

Page last reviewed: February 2010