What Does It Mean to ‘Act Charitably'? Revisiting the Purposes and Activities Distinction in Charity Law

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2022

Source Publication

Charity Law, edited by Matthew Harding and Daniel Halliday, 1st ed., vol. 1, Routledge, 2022, pp. 15–53, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003158240-2.

Abstract

This chapter’s ambition is to deepen understanding of the distinction and its implications for charity law generally and the public benefit standard specifically. Section 1.2 briefly reviews the distinction between means (activities) and ends (purposes) in charity law, acknowledging that the distinction can be difficult to draw. Section 1.3 frames the common law of charity as ‘purpose-centric’ and sketches the implications of this orientation for the differentiated treatment of purposes and activities. Section 1.4 identifies the policy advantages of charity law’s differentiated approach to characterising purposes and activities as charitable or non-charitable. Section 1.5 identifies the regulatory challenges of charity law’s differentiated approach to purposes and activities. Section 1.6 considers whether regulating the activities of charities beyond merely requiring that they further charitable purposes is incompatible with the traditional enabling posture of charity law. And Section 1.7 sketches the implications of this study for the future treatment of the purposes–activities distinction in charity law.

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