So I am entering the Third Sector properly, by heading up Click4Causes a social enterprise. I have volenteered my time as a trustee to three charities for a while now, but I am taking the next step and going full time! Well almost full time.

The UK Govenment defines Social enterprises as “businesses with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners”. Thats what Click4Causes is.

My aim at Click4Causes is to provide monatary and marketing development resources to fundraiseing and charity organisations.

The UK has an extraordinarily diverse and vibrant charitable sector which engages, supports and enhances the lives of people throughout this and many other countries. In England and Wales charities with annual incomes over £5,000 are required to register with the Charity Commission. Since April 2008 charities have had to prove ‘public benefit’ to the Charity Commission. ‘Public benefit’ is the legal requirement that every organisation set up for one or more charitable aims must be able to demonstrate that its aims are for the public benefit if it is to be recognised, and registered, as a charity in England and Wales.

Small charities and some religious organisations do not have to register and are called “excepted charities”. Some specific types of larger charities are also not required to register because they are regulated by agencies other than the Charity Commission. These charities include universities and are called “exempt charities”.
(Charities that were ‘excepted’, and some that were ‘exempt’ from registration before the Charities Act 2006 – will have to register if their gross annual income exceeds £100,000 starting in January 2009.) Other types of organisation also undertake activities that contribute to society. These include voluntary and community organisations and social and community enterprises.

At Click4Causes we want to engage with as many of these fundraising organisations as possible and develop free and susidised resources to the people volenteering their time to raise funds for their organisations. I believe that peoples individual stories resonate much better than the generalmarketing messages I currently recieve from many charities.

The origin of charities in England and Wales can be traced back to Elizabethan times. In 1601 three specific categories of charitable activities were identified: the relief of poverty, the advancement of education and the advancement of religion. Over the past 400 years the scope of activities recognised as charitable has expanded and have been recently defined in the Charities Act 2006 to include the prevention or relief of poverty; the advancement of education; the advancement of religion; the advancement of health or the saving of lives; the advancement of citizenship or community development; the advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science; the advancement of amateur sport; the advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity; the advancement of environmental protection or improvement; the relief of those in need, by reason of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage; the advancement of animal welfare; the promotion of the efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown or of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services; other purposes currently recognised as charitable and any new charitable purposes which are similar to another charitable purpose.

In addition to these charity categories charities perform three services: they provide help; they represent or campaign they provide resources such as grants or volunteer help.

Charities have three main types of beneficiary groups: individuals – including the elderly, children etc; 
institutions – including hospitals, schools etc; the environment – including the conservation of land, animals etc. The area of benefit of charities extends from individual local communities to regions, countries, continents and, in some cases, worldwide.

With a 169,000 charities in the UK I will have a big job to contact them all but I am confident that Click4Causes will provide a new way for charities to generate funds and engage with their supporters.