Online Toolkit

To set up a charity or community organisation in Northern Ireland, you will need to follow several steps. Here is a general overview of the process:

1. Identify your Purpose: Determine the purpose and objectives of your charity or community organisation. Clearly define the issues you aim to address and the impact you want to make.
2. Research and Planning: Conduct thorough research to understand the need for your organisation’s services or activities. Identify potential beneficiaries and assess existing initiatives in the heritage sector. Develop a detailed business plan that outlines your goals, strategies, and financial projections.
3. Legal Structure: Choose an appropriate legal structure for your organisation. Each structure has different requirements and implications, so seek legal advice to determine the best fit for your organisation.
4. Governance and Leadership: Establish a board of trustees or directors who will be responsible for the overall governance and strategic direction of the organization. Ensure the individuals you choose have the necessary skills, expertise, and commitment to fulfill their roles effectively.
5. Registration: Apply for registration with the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland (CCNI) if you intend to operate as a charity. The registration process involves providing detailed information about your organisation, its purposes, governance, and financial policies. Non-charitable community organisations may not require registration but should still comply with relevant laws and regulations.
6. Policies and Procedures: Develop essential policies and procedures to govern your organisation effectively. This may include financial management, safeguarding, volunteer management, and other relevant policies.
7. Funding and Resources: Identify potential sources of funding, such as grants, donations, and fundraising activities. Create a sustainable financial plan and explore partnerships or collaborations with other organizations to leverage resources.
8. Public Benefit: Ensure that your organisation’s activities are exclusively for the public benefit. Clearly articulate the positive impact your organisation intends to make and regularly evaluate and report on your outcomes.
9. Compliance and Reporting: Comply with all legal and regulatory requirements, including financial reporting, annual returns, and governance standards. Familiarize yourself with the reporting obligations outlined by the CCNI or other relevant authorities.
10. Public Engagement and Promotion: Develop a marketing and communication strategy to raise awareness about your organisation and its activities. Engage with the community, stakeholders, and potential beneficiaries to generate support and participation.

See the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland’s “Starting a new Charity” document HERE

The marketing, communication, and promotion of your heritage project is vital for attracting participants. Promotion and advertising can help your project gain traction, celebrate success, and generate vital funds and/or donations, whether it be at the beginning, middle, or end of your project. Good marketing and communication practices may even lead to an extension or follow-up project.
Ways to promote your project include:

• Exhibitions (online and/or in person)
• Film/Videos
• Talks and presentations (online and/or in person)
• Social media posts
• Leaflets and publications
• A festival of events (annual/one off)

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Communication Plans

A ‘Comms Plan’ is a long-term strategy outlining what you and your project are trying to say, and how and when it is best to say it.
Agreed organisational and/or project brand guidelines in the initial planning stages allow for consistent marketing. This can include the development of slogans, titles, and logos.

Currently, social media is the most effective marketing tool, with the ability to reach diverse and wide-ranging audiences. Regular posts about project events, publications, and outcomes enable social media users to follow and feel involved with your work.

Social media also allows the public to see mutual support from other heritage organisations and projects, something which is greatly valued, and allows the audiences of different organisations to expand their spheres of interest.

Schedules help you organise and plan your project prior to the commencement of activities, factoring in all of the other topics discussed in this guide such as audience, budget, marketing, and communications.

Outlining key milestones (such as your objectives), your project schedule will enable you to factor in potential problems or issues that may arise prior to commencement. This includes contingency for staff or volunteer shortages, holidays, or problems with venue availability. A robust schedule will also give you the opportunity to promote or take advantage of concurrent external events. You could, for example, schedule an event to coincide with a significant anniversary related to a specific architect, building, or other historic event. Furthermore, you may be able to tie your project into cultural events that run throughout the year in Northern Ireland.

To create a project schedule, you should:

1. Define the scope of your project
2. Identify your goals
3. List the project tasks
4. Identify task dependencies – tasks that can only begin on completion of an earlier one
5. Set project milestones
6. Delegate the tasks to the relevant members of your group
7. Evaluate and monitor the project schedule and adjust accordingly

There are many different ways that you can keep track of your project schedule. One of the most popular is a Gantt chart, a type of bar chart which illustrates the dependencies between tasks and allows easy monitoring of project progress.

Throughout your project it is advisable to gather feedback where possible, even if this is not part of a funding requirement. Project feedback enables you as an organiser to see what people think of the project and evaluate what is working well and what is not. Feedback can be gathered from project participants, staff, volunteers, members of the community, and funders. Ultimately this feedback is then used to evaluate the project upon completion. A realistic project evaluation will help you determine if:

• Goals, objectives, and outcomes were met
• The target audience was reached
• The project had a lasting effect
• The project could be repeated, reused, or expanded upon in the future
  It is important, when possible, to have an external evaluation of your project carried out by a
  qualified professional.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund have published a a good-practice guide for project evaluation, which can be accessed HERE