Developing Your Charity's Mission Without Mission Drift

This time the GovernanceMatters spotlight is on how your charity can develop what it does and who it supports without straying beyond what it is allowed to do.

It is common for a charity’s mission to evolve and, when properly planned, growing its mission can be hugely beneficial to those it is there to serve.? However, when unplanned mission creep reaches the point of 'mission drift' it can land both the charity and its trustees in hot soup.

What is mission drift?

It is when a charity's assets are used to undertake or fund activities that are beyond the scope of its charitable purposes. It can be as simple as a charity whose stated charitable purposes are to support a particular community or area extending its support to those outside that community or locality. It also happens where a charity set up for one charitable purpose e.g., 'the relief of poverty' undertakes activities that further an entirely different purpose such as the advancement of education.

Top Tip

Ensuring trustees are and remain cognisant of what the charity is set up to do and who it is there to benefit, as stated in its governing document, is key to avoiding mission drift.

Why mission drift happens

Mission drift often occurs because strategic decision-makers i.e., trustees and senior leaders focus on and extend what the charity does without aligning its mission, vision, strategy and activities with its charitable purposes. Funding pressure can also be a contributory factor, by charities agreeing to take on new activities to secure funding without reference to whether those activities fall within its existing charitable purposes.

Top tip

Keeping the charity’s purposes at the heart of strategic planning will help ensure the activities and purposes remain in sync, either by limiting activities or extending the purposes.

Updating charitable purposes to avoid mission drift

Charity trustees and senior leaders should regularly review whether the charity’s purposes remain fit for purpose. If the charitable purposes need to be broadened, the governing document should be updated. The procedure a charity needs to follow to update its purposes depends on its legal structure.

Top tip

Provisions in the Charities Act 2022, due to be brought into force in early 2024, will require all charities to seek consent from the Charity Commission for any substantive change to their charitable purposes.

What are the consequences of mission drift?

There could be adverse tax consequences for the charity, as well as searching questions from donors, funders, the Charity Commission and other stakeholders. It also exposes the charity's trustees to the risk of potential personal liability for breach of trust when assets are applied outside the charity's purposes. ?

Top tip:

If your charity is working at the limits of what it is set up to do, or has strayed beyond that, you need to act.

Whose responsibility is it?

It’s ultimately the responsibility of the trustees to ensure the charity’s activities do not stray beyond its charitable purposes or to ensure those purposes are extended if it wants to move into new areas.

The evolution of a charity’s original mission is often an indicator of how much it is needed and of its ambition to provide support in as many ways and to as many as it can. By keeping your eye on the ball, it is possible to develop a charity’s mission without mission drift.

Useful Resources

Delivering Purposes: www.gov.uk/guidance/charity-purposes-and-rules

The Essential Trustee (section 4): www.gov.uk/guidance/the essential trustee - what you need to know (CC3)