Charity/welfare organisation or is this a way of someone supplementing their income?

[fingersandthumbs]

Hopefully I'm going to be able to give sufficient details for someone knowledgable to offer advice or an opinion on without outing myself in real life.

I am on the preipheray of a hobby/past time that involves dogs. A person who is also involved in this hobby but to a much greater extent than myself has set up a welfare organisation for dogs. Its advertising material calls it a club but there are no club rules or committee.

This organisation has been in existence for a number of years and it appears to be run alongside the person's main hobby/business which is strongly conncted with the welfare organisation.

It is advertised as a welfare organisation and its publicity material asks for donations. The organisation is not registered as a charity, does not appear to be a company (limited or otherwise) and does not publish accounts. It does appear to do some good works in relation to welfare of a particular breed of dogs.

A number of people have expressed concern that donations and money raised by the welfare organisation, which is solely run by the person and their partner, are being used to fund the perons hobby/business rather than for the welfare organisation which runs alongside the business.

We know that running this type of orgnaisation incurs substantial costs in terms of vets fees, kenneling etc but the concern is that donations and money raised are not being used for their intended purpose; rather they are being used to support the hobby/business of the people who have set up the welfare organisation.

My questions:- are there any rules, laws which govern welfare organisations?

If money is not being used for support of the welfare organisation, apart from being immoral is there anything illegal happening? Or if its just a small percentage of the money donated being used in relation to the published aims of the organisation does that matter?

[Slapperati]

If it doesn't specifically claim to be a registered charity then no, there is nothing illegal about what it is doing.

This link Fundraising may help you.

[fingersandthumbs]

Thanks for this Slapperati, there's lots of useful information on the link.

I think our starting point is going to be to ask this person whether the organisation is incorporated, a trust or a company.