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Free UK charity policy templates to create your own safeguarding, internal financial control, health and safety at work, data protection (GDPR) and other less usual policies for charities such as anti-money laundering required for compliance with Charity Commission guidance.
You can download any of our charity policy templates by clicking the button below. Other organisations also produce policies but charge at least £100 to access these. All of our policies are free.
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The policies you might need depend on a range of factors, including which regulators you have, the activities you undertake, staffing, and even your own culture. As you score our health check questionnaires (all 8 should take no more than a couple of hours), the system will help you ask yourself the questions you need to and connect you to policy downloads and a whole range of other resources too. Complete all 8 to qualify for our free Quality Mark.
The Charity Commission lists a series of policies that you complete as part of your annual return. Not all may apply but, to be honest, it's a bit naff. It looks like a policy list designed by a committee of Civil Servants, which is probably what it is. You can download any of these by logging in the Charity Excellence.
Here's the list: risk management, investment, safeguarding, conflicting interests, volunteer management, complaints handling, paying staff, social media, financial reserves, external speakers, bullying, serious incident reporting, trustee expenses and campaigns and political activity.
There is no single list but this is my own list of some of the most common/key policies that charities have.
Plus key staff policies if you employ people, such as disciplinary, grievance and capability.
Very few policies are explicitly required by law, but charities must still comply with all relevant laws (e.g. safeguarding, data protection, employment), and policies are the main way to demonstrate this. The specific legal requirements may vary depending on the nature of the activities your charity undertakes and the countries in which it operates.
You will always wish to think about any health and safety policies you might need and having a written health and safety policy statement is a good idea and is a regulatory requirement, if you have 5 or more staff. Equally, with staff, you'll need to think about policies such as grievance, disciplinary and capability. The Acas website has lots of guidance, downloadable policy templates and a free help line.
I have created policies that cover almost anything you might need and each has been written to be fully compliant with Charity Commission E&W guidance.
If you work with children or vulnerable adults, you must have a Safeguarding policy. What others you might need depends on your cause on and role. If you complete the system health checks, it'll enable you to decide what you might needs but here's some guidance.
Data Protection and a Volunteer Recruitment and Selection policies are often very useful.
The most common policy required by grant makers is safeguarding. If you work with children or vulnerable adults this is a must have anyway. If you want to cover the most common, these are probably safeguarding, plus possibly data protection (GDPR), financial controls, conflicts of interest, equality/EDI and complaints policy but they sometimes ask for some weird and wonderful ones. One I've heard of wanted a modern slavery policy, which is only a requirement if your income exceeds £36m pa. That's why we created one, even though the vast majority of charities would never need it.
If you are a grant maker, you should have a grant making policy. Grant makers don't often specify policies they expect potential grantees to hold.
The banks can be a real pain and may ask a whole series of detailed questions, when opening an account or as part of their know your customer processes. Particularly, if you work overseas in areas such as Pakistan, Somalia or Afghanistan. I've written a guide with links to people to help you, templates etc. I've also created charity policies for anti money laundering, anti bribery and due diligence (for sanctions) that you can download by logging in.
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I am not an accountant, nor a lawyer and no advice can be applicable to all organisations, in all circumstances, so this resource is no more than a guide to understanding. I've summarised the regulatory guidance and augmented this with my own experience and Internet research, but I am not competent to provide professional advice. I have included links to the source guidance to enable you to check this yourself and, if you think you might need professional advice, register, then login and use the Help Finder directory to find pro bono support. Everything is free.
The Charity Commission doesn’t publish a list of policies required but does publish guidance on specific issues such as safeguarding, reserves, conflict of interest and risk management.
There is no definitive list of charity finance policies, but internal financial controls and reserves are probably the most common. Others include cash handling, schemes of delegation, investment, money laundering.
Trustees need to set aside sufficient funding to protect against reductions in income or to take advantage of an opportunity. A reserves policy is a useful way to do that and is usually a standard policy in all but the smallest charities.
The H&SW Act requires organisations with 5 or more staff to have a written H&SW policy. However, charities with fewer should think about having one and should have any specific H&SW policies needed to keep everyone safe.
Your charity must have a safeguarding policy if you work with children or vulnerable adults and trustees should consider other safety policies, such as H&SW, Bullying & Harassment and Whistleblowing.
The Data Protection Act applies to all organisations that process personal data, including volunteers and donors. A data protection policy helps you to comply with the Law.
There is no legal requirement to have a money laundering policy, but it can be useful for charities working overseas and banks are increasingly asking for one.
It is not a legal requirement to have an anti bribery policy but the UK anti bribery act applies globally and, if you work overseas, it's best practice to have one, particularly if you work in high risk countries. The banks are increasingly asking some charities for these.
There should be a regular programme of reviewing all policies with key policies reviewed by trustees annually.
Policies should be updated when the charity changes how it works, starts new activities or there is a change in the Law or regulator’s guidance.
