A spokeswoman for American non-profit organisation charity: water has said that the organisation has made an application to the Charity Commission and hopes to be operational in the UK “by the autumn”.
Angharad McKenzie, who is currently consulting with charity: water in the United States on its UK launch, confirmed to Civil Society News that the organisation has made an application to the Charity Commission to become a registered charity in the UK.
She said that the application was made six-weeks ago and that the organisation was still waiting on confirmation from the regulator. McKenzie said that, as the organisation has the word ‘Charity’ in its name, it has been unable to register as a business entity with HMRC until it is registered with the Commission.
McKenzie stressed that, until charity: water is registered in the UK, her role with the organisation is strictly about “cultivating an audience and gathering support in order to get ready to launch later in the year”.
She said that the organisation would “hopefully” be ready to launch by the autumn, and that all money raised in the UK will be fed back to charity: water in the US. She also explained that charity: water UK will follow the same structure as the organisation in the US.
“Charity: water is not saying that it doesn’t have overhead costs, or that overhead costs are bad,” she said. “We’re enabled to offer 100 per cent of donations by having a relatively small cohort of benefactors that we call ‘The Well’.”
‘The Well’ is a collection of 110 high net worth families around the world, who each contribute sums of money annually which are used by the organisation to exclusively pay for its staff and other running costs.
McKenzie said that a minimum buy-in for people to become part of ‘The Well’ is $60,000 a year, for three years. She said that once charity: water is up and running in the UK, would-be UK benefactors would contribute a minimum of “£40,000 a year, for three years”.
She said that “some 10 per cent of charity: water’s supporters are based in Europe”, and that the top three contributors live in the UK or are British citizens.
Charity: water was founded 10 years ago and now has one million supporters in the US. It has funded over 20,000 water projects in 24 countries around the world providing 6.3 million people with clean water.
According to charity: water’s last set of financial accounts, it had an income of over $24m (£18.1m).
