5. Registering a charity and making changes to your charity

Registering a charity

We are continuing to process applications to register new charities. We will prioritise applications related to the COVID-19 emergency, but it may take longer than usual for us to process other registrations. 

If you are thinking about becoming a charity please see our guidance.

You do not need to set up a charity to fundraise or support your local community. See the volunteering and safer giving sections of the guidance for information on how to help with the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Change of purpose(s)

If you want to help with the outbreak but your charitable purposes don’t currently allow you to, you can change your purposes (either temporarily or permanently).

You still need to apply for our consent. In this instance, you should mark on the application form that the change relates to COVID-19 so that we can prioritise the application.

Please add ‘(Coronavirus-related change)’ in the email subject and next to the Charity name box on the application form. Examples of purpose wordings can be found in our guidance.

See our guidance on making changes to your charity.