Fundraising & Trading

We help make your brilliant ideas reality.

Lotteries, sponsorship, online shops: charities need to raise money to achieve their goals. It’s why you hire innovative, entrepreneurial fundraisers. And we love working with them to turn their great ideas into reality.

We advise on the legal, tax and regulatory implications of:

  • appeals, including online and text donations and legacy campaigns
  • corporate sponsorship and commercial deals
  • fundraising events, including worldwide challenge events
  • lotteries, free prize draws and competitions
  • collecting and protecting people’s data
  • charity shops.

We also help you understand when your charity can trade directly, when it needs to use a subsidiary and how to structure that subsidiary.

And if your fundraising ever becomes front page news for the wrong reasons, our Media Disputes team can help you manage the damage.

Explore

Briefing for Charities & Social Enterprises | 11 June

Our weekly round up of news and updates from across the sector. To help you navigate this week’s content, the links below will take you straight to content by topic. Charity Commission We reported a few weeks ago that the Charity Commission’s guidance CC30, Finding and appointing new trustees, has been updated. We’ve reviewed the …
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Setting up in the UK – support for US non-profits

At Bates Wells, we work with a wide range of international organisations, to support you in navigating the English landscape for charities and non-profits. In the face of increasing concerns about the regulatory landscape in the US, we are working with a number of clients to explore their options for maintaining resilience and mitigating risk …
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Webinar | Charities & the use of social media: the blurring of personal and professional lives | 17 June 2025

Navigating the use of social media remains a challenging topic for many charities. Managed properly, a charity’s own social media channel can be a powerful force for engagement with the public. However, the position can become more complicated when it comes to the use of individual social media accounts and the accompanying blurring of professional …
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The Charities Act 2022, explained: revisiting the key changes to the rules relating to charity land

Now that the majority of the changes to the rules on disposals of charity land introduced by the Charities Act 2022 have been implemented on a phased basis, we revisit the various key amendments which could save charities time and money when disposing of property. What do you need to know? Part 7 of the …
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New data protection law will make it easier for charities to fundraise

It isn’t often that new data protection law actually makes it easier to do things. But that is the case with the Data (Use and Access) Bill (“the Bill“) which is currently making its way through Parliament. What’s changing? The legislation makes it easier for charities to contact existing supporters by e-mail and text message …
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Meet our team