The joys of paperwork and conflicting information

It’s the 28th April 2026 and the charity remains unregistered — I still haven’t even submitted the application. Not really through anyone’s fault, but there seems to have been a slight… misunderstanding between my business advisor — aka ChatGPT — and me!

So for the past few weeks, I was working on the understanding that we needed to be able to prove we could guarantee fundraising £5,000 in the first year of the charity being registered. So myself and the trustees have been wracking our brains trying to find businesses or affluent individuals who would confirm they’d be happy to donate a chunk of money to the foundation once we’re registered. Needless to say, that hasn’t happened yet.

But then Hananto, our Indonesian trustee, did some research and suggested I check again, as the information he found said we didn’t actually need this guaranteed funding. Cue a proper deep dive on Google and the UK government website… and he was right! Slightly mad that it was our Indonesian trustee who managed to interpret UK law better than the rest of us!

It turns out that because our charity will be a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), we don’t need to have funding guaranteed prior to registration. We do need a fundraising plan to submit with the application, but that’s very different from having £5,000 agreed in principle. So that’s one less hurdle for us to climb.

The joys of paperwork and conflicting information

So far, we’ve written our governing document (with a little help from AI, if I’m being completely honest), created what I’m calling a “prospectus” — essentially a poster we can send to businesses as part of our fundraising efforts — finalised the charity name, and set our objectives.

Next on the list is the trustee declaration form. It sounds simple enough… except one of our members is in Indonesia. Thank God for technology — I’m hoping I can send the form as a PDF, have him print and sign it, then scan and send it back. Easy, right?

So that’s where we are right now. I’m really hoping to get the application submitted within the next few weeks and finally start the process of getting registered.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find the government website and guidance confusing. And I do consider myself fairly articulate and educated. But I suppose it’s just a type of language I’ve never had to deal with before — so it’s definitely a learning curve.

Let’s see how the next few weeks play out!

If you’d like to follow the journey as this unfolds, you can join us — every step, every win, and every lesson learned along the way.