The Jersey Charity Commissioner published his Annual Report for 2019 at the end of April 2020. It notes that good progress has been made on introducing the public register of charities in Jersey over the last two years.
Here are some points of interest from that Report:
Number of Registered Charities
As at 29 April 2020 345 applications had been approved for registration by the Jersey Charity Commissioner. Thirteen of these were registered in the restricted section of the charity register which is designed for privately endowed or privately funded charities which do not solicit donations from the public.
Value of Distributions by Private Charities
The thirteen “private” charities entered in the restricted register distributed in aggregate some £46 million to charitable causes in the year in which they became registered.
Most Popular Charitable Purposes
Looking at the range of charitable purposes supported by the 300 charities registered in Jersey by the end of 2019, the three most common statutory charitable purposes were as follows:
- the relief of those in need by reason of age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage – 17%
- the advancement of religion – 12%
- the advancement of citizenship or community development – 12%.
Incidence of Charitable Purposes
There are fifteen statute-defined charitable purposes set out in the Charities (Jersey) Law 2014. The following table lists the number of those purposes as they feature amongst the objects of Jersey registered charities. Many registered charities have more than one stated charitable purpose. This accounts for the total of 514 purposes shown in the table as against the total of 300 charities registered in Jersey by the end of 2019.
| Charitable Purposes | Number of references to this Charitable Purpose |
| (a) prevention or relief of poverty | 33 |
| (b) advancement of education | 57 |
| (c) advancement of religion | 62 |
| (d) advancement of health | 45 |
| (e) saving of lives | 14 |
| (f) advancement of citizenship or community development | 62 |
| (g) advancement of the arts, heritage, culture or science | 32 |
| (h) advancement of public participation in sport | 12 |
| (i) provision of recreational facilities for improving the conditions of life for those for whom the facilities are primarily intended | 24 |
| (j) advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation | 11 |
| (k) promotion of religious or racial harmony | 4 |
| (l) promotion of equality and diversity | 17 |
| (m) advancement of environmental protection or improvement | 17 |
| (n) relief of those in need by reason of disadvantage | 89 |
| (o) advancement of animal welfare | 11 |
| (p) grant making in favour of other registered charities | 24 |
Geographical Sphere of Operation
Looking at the 300 charities that were registered by the end of 2019, 158 operated only in Jersey, 44 in both Jersey and the United Kingdom and 19 provided their public benefit exclusively in locations outside Jersey. Data on the area of operation for the remaining 79 registered charities as at the end of 2019 was not available.
Trusted Status
Finally, the Jersey Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, published in December 2019 by Statistics Jersey showed that according to the public polling and data collection undertaken by Statistics Jersey, Jersey charities were scored alongside the Jersey Police Force as the most trustworthy of institutions present in Jersey.
Simon Howard – Howard Consulting Limited
