2008/8/28 Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com:
On Wed, August 27, 2008 23:48, Thomas Dalton wrote:
The HMRC thing should be sufficient for starters. Some large donors may like full registration before they donate, but I think most just want to know it's tax deductible.
I'm sorry if this could sound like a personal attack (it isn't) but you don't seem to get it. Corporate donors are far less interested in any tax deductibility than they are in being associated with a Charitable institution doing good deeds.
I would count corporate donors in the "large donors" category - companies aren't likely to be donating small amounts. Small donations from individuals won't care about the difference between the HMRC status and full charity status, it it's tax deductible they'll know it's a trustworthy cause and just hand over the cash.
The board of a charity are trusted with donated funds, the board of a plain limited company are just trusted with the company's funds - that's a big difference.
And similarly here. We aren't talking about "company funds"! The raison d'être for there being a UK Chapter is that it will receive donated funds and will, of course, be being trusted with those donations for the benefit of the Objects.
Funds donated to a company are different from funds donated to a charity. For example, as a company there is nothing stopping us sending money to the WMF (that I know of, at least, feel free to correct me). As a charity, we can't do that because the trustees wouldn't have control over that money.