Trust, Company or CIO: What structure is right for your organisation?

There are three main legal structures available to new or existing charities. All are equally charities, but each has its own distinctive flavour and characteristics. With transferring between some types of structure recently made easier, read this paper to see whether a charitable trust, a charitable company or a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) is the right model for your church or charity.

Topics included:

• Are all three available charity structures subject to Charity Law in the same way?
• Is it just charitable companies that are subject to Company Law?
• What is it that makes the charitable incorporated organisation the leading choice for most newly formed charities?
• What is the personal liability exposure under each of the three charity structures?
• Can all three charity structures hold the title to property?
• Are the filing requirements the same for all three charity structures?
• Are the accounting requirements the same for all three charitable structures?
• How easy is it to transfer from one charity structure to another?