Charities Should Not Reject Donations Based on Personal Views or External Pressures, Regular Says

Charities should not reject donations based on “personal views” or “external pressures,” the sector’s regulator has said, adding it may intervene if trustees cannot demonstrate “sound judgement” on why a gift was refused. The Charity Commission published guidance on Monday instructing charities in England and Wales that trustees should not allow “their personal views, or any external pressures that do not relate to their charity’s purposes, to influence them to act in a way that is not in their charity’s best interests.” Chairman of the Charity Commission, Orlando Fraser, KC, first announced the guidance on turning down donations last year, when he warned against trustees’ “personal squeamishness around sources of philanthropic funding” becoming an obstruction to accepting donations....