CIO
On 1st November 2020 Soul Survivor Watford changed from a charitable trust to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). But what does that actually mean?! We’ll start with a bit of our history…
Why have we been a charitable trust?
Back in 1993 when Mike and a small group from St Andrews Chorleywood planted Soul Survivor Watford there were two members of the team who already had a charity set up: Ken & Jeannie Morgan. The easiest and quickest thing at the time was for Soul Survivor Watford to use the K&J Morgan Trust as the work of Soul Survivor Watford fell under the aims of the trust, and setting up a new charity would have taken an unnecessary amount of time and money.
This is how we’ve continued ever since but, of course, we’ve grown and changed a lot since then. Over the last couple of years, we’ve been reviewing the type of trust we are and weighing up what’s more suitable for us for where we are today and how we want to grow in the future.
Why are we now changing to a CIO?
This report from Stewardship explains the main differences between a charitable trust and a CIO but here are a couple of key reasons why we wanted to change:
In a charitable trust, the trustees carry all the personal liability whereas in a CIO any debts are owed by the charity itself and not by the trustees personally.
In a charitable trust the trustees are named on property deeds and it therefore costs us money every time a trustee changes. For a CIO, the building is held in the name of charity instead.
This has also given us an opportunity to write down our constitution which lays out things like how we would appoint a new Senior Pastor if needed, how we appoint trustees and how long they remain in position. We’ll add our constitution here shortly.
Why are we doing this now?
In light of recent growth in our church and the need to increase our building space we were looking at new and increased mortgages so this was a helpful prompt to move us to change. With the arrival of Covid we paused our decision on taking a mortgage and decided to do the building work in stages instead. The work for the CIO transition had already been done and it is still the best thing for us.
What does this mean for me?
Very little will change! Most things will stay exactly the same but there is one key difference: the bank details you need if you would like to give to the church family will change. Don’t worry, your current giving will still reach us as our previous bank details will remain valid for a while longer! However, it will help us greatly if you could update any standing orders and future giving to the new CIO bank accounts. The new bank details are:
General fund
Bank: Lloyds
Account Name: Soul Survivor Watford
Account number: 86143168
Sort code: 30 98 97
Making Room For More (Building fund)
Bank: Lloyds
Account Name: Soul Survivor Watford
Account: 86103968
Sort code: 30 98 97
If you have any questions, please contact Dan, our Finance Manager, in the office. (Email: dstickland@soulsurvivorwatford.co.uk, telephone 01923 204203.