Comments on: Starting a Non-Profit in the UK

By: Edmund Meneses

Edmund Meneses — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 11:29:53 +0000

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By: Peter Ferne

Peter Ferne — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:59:41 +0000

Thanks to Russ's input we went with a Section 30 CLG for the Bristol Hackspace too. I've seen and read Chris Cook on LLPs and they do seem like the most flexible option although that also seems to mean that they aren't so easy to use 'off the shelf' without a little customisation. Business Link also publish a one pager called Legal Structures for Social Enterprise at a Glance (as a Word .doc) which I have mirrored as an .odt and a .pdf.

By: Russ

Russ — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:50:48 +0000

Chris, that’s really interesting – I’d never considered LLPs before, because I assumed there was a good reason why only accountants and lawyers used them…

It seems that a hacker space style business, where you have many members of the non-profit paying for access to the services it provides, would still be best served by a CLG where the company is run by directors/trustees elected by the members.

That said, I shall definitely be looking further into LLPs.

I suppose it’s also worth noting that I omitted Industrial and Provident societies from my post. These are how most “proper” co-operatives are structured and, as I understand it, they enable the company to pay dividends to its members/customers.

By: Chris Cook

Chris Cook — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:45:44 +0000

You’re forgetting LLPs, which is not unusual because while most professionals are now LLPs they will rarely advise their clients to use the form.

Probably something to do with being paid by the hour rather than the outcome….

This presentation might be of interest.

http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisJCook/social-investment-mechanism-12-03-09

and this article

http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/innovations/data/000085

I advocate the use of the UK LLP as a framework for development. I think that multiple One Click Orgs could easily be created within what I call a “Master Partnership”.