Fundraising Regulations for UK Charities: A Legal Guide | LegalDocuments.co.uk

Overview

Charity fundraising regulation in the UK is a layered system rather than a single statute. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Fundraising Regulator is the independent body that oversees fundraising standards through its Code of Fundraising Practice. Scotland has its own arrangements, with the Scottish Fundraising Adjudication Panel handling complaints and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) overseeing charities more broadly.

Sitting alongside these are statutory rules, most notably parts of the Charities Act 2011, the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Act 2016, data protection law under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) which govern marketing calls, texts and emails. Trustees carry overall legal responsibility for how their charity fundraises.

That means the duty to act with reasonable care, to avoid conflicts of interest, to manage risk, and to ensure that fundraisers acting in the charity's name, whether employees, volunteers or paid agencies, operate to the expected standards. Specific rules also apply to street collections, house-to-house appeals, lotteries, raffles and working with commercial participators.

Key steps

1. Map out your fundraising activities and the rules that attach to each. Different fundraising methods trigger different rules. A street collection needs a local authority permit; a small society lottery must be registered; an email appeal must comply with PECR; working with a professional fundraiser triggers written agreement requirements under the Charities Act. Start by listing every method your charity uses, then identify the legal and Code requirements for each. This inventory becomes the foundation for your compliance programme.
2. Register with the Fundraising Regulator and commit to the Code of Fundraising Practice. Charities fundraising from the public in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are expected to register with the Fundraising Regulator and pay the annual levy if their fundraising spend meets the threshold. Registration signals a public commitment to the Code and allows you to display the Fundraising Badge. Make sure trustees have formally adopted the Code and that staff and volunteers know it applies to them.
3. Put donor protection and data handling at the centre of your operations. UK GDPR, the DPA 2018 and PECR set strict rules on how you can contact donors, what consent you need, and how their information must be stored and used. Vulnerable donors need particular care, the Code sets clear expectations here. Have a documented privacy notice, a lawful basis for each type of processing, and a process for handling subject access requests and marketing preferences.
4. Manage third-party fundraisers and commercial arrangements carefully. If you use a professional fundraising agency, a commercial participator, or a third-party platform, the law requires specific written agreements and certain statements to donors about how much of their money reaches the cause. Trustees should carry out due diligence before engaging any third party, monitor their conduct during the contract, and audit results afterwards. The charity remains accountable for what is done in its name.
5. Build a clear complaints and oversight process. Have a published complaints procedure that is easy for the public to find and use. Log every complaint, respond within reasonable timescales, and review patterns at board level. Serious complaints and anything that might damage public trust should be reported to the Charity Commission as part of your serious incident reporting duty, and potentially to the Fundraising Regulator. Good complaint handling is often the difference between a contained issue and a regulatory investigation.