The commission recognises that many charities that are concerned with preventing or relieving poverty will do so by addressing both the causes (prevention) and the consequences (relief) of poverty. The prevention or relief of poverty is not just about giving financial assistance to people who lack money poverty is a more complex issue that is dependent upon the social and economic circumstances in which it arises. Poverty can both create, and be created by, adverse social conditions, such as poor health and nutrition, and low achievement in education and other areas of human development. It might be experienced on a long or short-term basis. It can affect individuals and whole communities. There can be no absolute definition of what ‘poverty’ might mean since the problems giving rise to poverty are multi-dimensional and cumulative. In the past, the courts have tended to define ‘poverty’ by reference to financial hardship or lack of material things but, in current social and economic circumstances, poverty includes many disadvantages and difficulties arising from, or which cause, the lack of financial or material resources. The commission will consider each case on its own merits. Where that is the case, further clarification may need to be added to ensure that the purpose that is to be advanced is one that is exclusively, and unambiguously, charitable. In some cases, the wording used may not make it sufficiently clear what the organisation has been set up to do. However, in many cases, the wording used in these broad descriptions of purposes can have more than one meaning, and not all of those meanings are purposes that the law has recognised as charitable. That may be acceptable where it is clear that what is being advanced is a charitable purpose for the public benefit. In some cases, a charity may wish to adopt the wording of one of the descriptions of purposes as its stated aim. This has to be demonstrated in each case. To be a ‘charitable purpose’ it must be for the public benefit. ![]() There is no automatic presumption that an organisation with a stated aim that falls within one of the descriptions of purposes is charitable. The list of descriptions, taken as a whole with the purposes that underlie each description, encompasses everything that has, or may be, recognised as charitable in England and Wales. Under each of the descriptions lie a range of purposes, all of which fit the description, but each of which is a different purpose in its own right. ![]() The list of ‘descriptions of purposes’ in the Charities Act 2011 describe broad areas of potentially charitable activity.Įach item listed is a description or ‘head’ of charity rather than a fully-stated charitable purpose in itself. ![]() The Charities Act 2011 defines a charitable purpose, explicitly, as one that falls within 13 descriptions of purposes and is for the public benefit.
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