Social Enterprise, Charity or other? Youth Group

[MollyLollyPop]

Basically, I want to run my youth group with as little hassle as possible when it comes to this side of things. We will rely on donations, crowdfunding, fundraisers and grants quite a bit, but I don't really want to run it as a charity.

Social Enterprise is the next option, but as far as I can make out you can't ask for donations or any kind of funding for that.

I am not sure how else I could run it. While I'm not looking to make a huge amount, I will need to pay myself something or I won't even be able to transport myself to the venues/meetings - i'm not sure how paying yourself affects how you can run a group (i.e whether you are even allowed to take payment from it).

Anyone here clued up about this kind of thing?

A lot of grant awards are available to CICs as long as they have three unrelated directors. I work with a couple of CICs who have secured lottery grants for youth work.

Thank you Pretty - I will look into CIC's

I would say CIC too, I'm a trustee of a small charity and you don't want to go down that route if you don't have to.

There may be a voluntary sector support organisation in your area that could advise you on structure. Also look up community matters

I would say that achat itself unincorporated organisation is the way to go. It's the most simple level of charity and very straightforward to set up. Personally I'm reluctant to suggest going down the CIC route. You'll struggle with quite a lot of funders as a CIC and are unlikely to get relief on things like rates etc if you end up with premises. If your income is below £10k (I think) you won't even need to file with the charity commission. I need to check the details on that one but it's off the top of my head

A lot of grant awarding bodies won't fund unincorporated associations in my experience, so it might limit income - but the paperwork is a lot easier!

Hello MollyLollyPop. I'm currently setting up a CIC and would agree with Pretty that an increasing number of funders are becoming more open to considering CICs for funding.
You could pay yourself but any sum would have to be reasonable. I think its a really interesting model and a youth group would lend itself very well.
Also, remember the Charity Commission is becoming more like the Stasi with every passing month!!

If you need any advice do let me know. Good luck.

Is it a youth group that meets once a week?

I'd go for voluntary org first, unincorporated, no charity status. You can still apply to awards for all abd plenty of smaller funders and a youth group doesn't need mega funding. It's the easiest and quickest way to go.

I'm in Scotland so our charities are under different regulation.