About charitable purposes
The Charities Act 2011 defines a charitable purpose, explicitly, as one that falls within 13 descriptions of purposes and is for the public benefit.

Descriptions of purposes
The list of ‘descriptions of purposes’ in the Charities Act 2011 describe broad areas of potentially charitable activity.

Each item listed is a description or ‘head’ of charity rather than a fully-stated charitable purpose in itself. 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, 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.

There is no automatic presumption that an organisation with a stated aim that falls within one of the descriptions of purposes is charitable. To be a ‘charitable purpose’ it must be for the public benefit. This has to be demonstrated in each case.

In some cases, a charity may wish to adopt the wording of one of the descriptions of purposes as its stated aim. That may be acceptable where it is clear that what is being advanced is a charitable purpose for the public benefit.

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. In some cases, the wording used may not make it sufficiently clear what the organisation has been set up to do. 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. The commission will consider each case on its own merits.

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