Releasing dormant assets

The Foundation welcomes the opportunity to work in partnership with public bodies to facilitate the process of reorganising existing charitable trust funds and establish new community trust funds with objectives that meet the needs of local communities in the 21^st century while respecting the spirit of the original benefactors’ charitable intentions. 

The Foundation would work with you to prepare any applications for reorganising existing charitable trusts that need to be submitted to OSCR. We would also liaise with OSCR throughout the application process to ensure that the process is managed in an efficient and effective manner. 

There are two broad options for reorganising dormant and inactive charitable trusts and distributing the funds that are released to local community groups and voluntary organisations. These two options are as follows:

Amalgamation of existing trusts with the Foundation distributing the income

An application would be made to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) for the reorganisation of a number of charitable trusts and to transfer their assets to an existing trust with a broad remit or to a newly established charitable trust. Once the reorganisation application has been approved the income from the new trust would be transferred annually to a ‘ring fenced’ fund set up and managed by the Scottish Community Foundation. This would be used to award grants to appropriate projects and initiatives promoted by local community groups and voluntary organisations.   

Under this option councils would remain responsible for all reporting and accounting requirements for the newly reorganised charitable trust.

Transfer of assets from existing trusts to the Foundation

Under this option a reorganisation proposal would be made to OSCR to transfer the funds held in dormant or inactive charitable trusts to a named charitable fund managed by the Scottish Community Foundation. This fund would be ring-fenced and the proceeds of the transfer would be invested with an annual amount drawn down for grant making. 

An advantage of this option is that, once the funds from the reorganised trusts are transferred to the Scottish Community Foundation, councils would cease to be responsible for producing annual accounts and reporting to OSCR for individual charitable trusts. 

These options are flexible and the Foundation would welcome the opportunity to discuss your organisation’s needs with your representatives. We would then prepare a detailed proposal based on your organisations needs and requirements.

For more information, please call our public services development manager Robert Stevenson on 0131 524 0300.