Legal Expert Help Regarding Raising Funds For Specific Project Under Registered Charity

[oracle39]

Under a Museum which is registered charity mainly run by volunteers, is it within the rules to raise funds for a named specific project and ring fence those funds by requesting the museum to open another account? Scenario is: Rail group need to raise £25 - £40k for new boiler and restoration of steam engine. Volunteers in the group are worried that money will get used on other museum projects (this has happened with previous funds they raised). So they want reassurances and another account specifically for Rail group projects. Obviously when they apply for grants and funds and start fund raising they need the museum's charitable status, so they do not want to be an independent charity.
Before we put it to the Board of Trustees, I just want to check are there any legal complications that prevent the rail group having a separate account under the charity , it would still be managed by Museum administrators? Thank you

[cassa333]

Have you contacted the charity commission. They are usually very helpful in these matters.

[Peter Pedant]

or ask me
yes it is OK
make sure that the money can be raised under your articles and it perfectly OK to say that it is to be used for a certain defined subsets

raise it and minute it at a meeting of the trustees

actually it would be OK to have a partitioned account
BUT
if money has been raised for X ( which is allowable under your articles ) and used for Y - then I am amazed that an outraged party did not contact the Charity Commission as it is clear breach of trust

Partitioned money must be collected for that purpose - altho you could use some of your general money to augment it - and used for that purpose

and the money raised for a purpose has to be used for that purpose - the general rule is that if it is NOT it is to be returned to the donor.
( or used for a very like purpose under the cy-pres rule)
Cy pres rule is not very well explained here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cy-pr%C3%A8s_doctrine
as it mainly concerns american law)

so yeah a separate acct would be sensible

(I have to say I am shocked to read that money was raised for X and someone came along and said, no Y is better)

[RobNorth]

"Used for purpose" must have a wide interpretation - when one looks at the palatial HQ's of the big charities in central London, complete with staff on central London salaries and expenses....

[Peter Pedant]

no used for a purpose doesnt

it limits. The local hospital tried saying that any charity money given to a ward was for general purposes ( and in THAT fund) unless specified - so I advised the ward to ask the donor what purpose they wanted.
and yes that was how the hospital got the administrators furry wall-paper.....

[oracle39]

Thank you Peter, my understanding of the previous time the rail group raised funds was that it had not been agreed by the Board or at any meeting. They had raised concerns about the need for funds for this pending project but that was all. This time there will definitely need to be a documented agreement, before any commitment is made by fund raisers and we have a company wishing to make a donation and they want firm commitment and agreement too. So hopefully we will get this fund raising off the ground this year. I just wanted to get ahead of the pending meeting by being sure of the legal ground for setting up a separate account so we can identify the money specifically for this project and keep track of it. Thank you all for your comments.