Funding, Governance and a Royal Visit: Notes from the Charity Commission Annual Public Meeting

By Tam Watson – Head of Operations, Jumbo Interactive UK

The Charity Commission’s Annual Public Meeting

On Thursday 15 October 2026, I attended the Charity Commission’s Annual Public Meeting in central London. It’s the one fixed point in the regulator’s calendar at which it is obliged to stand in front of the sector it oversees, account for the past year, and take questions from its stakeholders.

Chair Dame Julia Unwin, Chief Executive David Holdsworth, and their colleagues did just that, in front of a room full of trustees, fundraisers and volunteers. I was there representing City of Trees, the Community Forest organisation for Greater Manchester, where I serve as Trustee-Treasurer. Conversations in the room, and the questions put to the Commission, kept returning to the two issues that dominate my day job at Jumbo Interactive in the UK: where the money is going to come from, and how charities are expected to govern it.

A regulator under pressure, and honest about it

Dame Julia Unwin’s address made three arguments. 

1. Charities are a precondition for growth and strong communities, not a by-product of them. 
2. The infrastructure holding the sector up is being hollowed out by administrative pressure. 
3. An independent, properly resourced Commission is what keeps public trust where it is.

The numbers were stark:  

• More than 11,700 applications to register a new charity last year, a record, with 4,650 making it onto the register. 
• Compliance cases are up 23%.  
• Response times have slipped.
• And, the Chair didn’t pretend they’ll recover overnight. 

Central Government has given the Commission an average 25% funding uplift over the next three years, most of it going on five core services from registration through to complaints. The ambition is to make the UK as safe a place to give as it is to invest.

The hardest-hitting passage was on infrastructure. The Directory of Social Change is in administration, Getting on Board folded last year, and the Foundation for Social Improvement, the Small Charities Coalition and Children England have all gone the same way. Reach Volunteering has been saved, but only to the end of 2028. The Chair called it the tremor before an earthquake, and told grant-makers, foundations, and government to take the long view. Infrastructure isn’t an overhead, she said, it’s the cheapest way to get the advice every organisation needs to function.

It was also a speech that drew lines. The Commission will register charities whose lawful purposes upset people, and it will resist pressure to find against a charity without evidence. Furthermore, it will act where the law requires, however sensitive the debate. The Chair condemned the intimidation of RNLI volunteers in the strongest terms and backed the Government’s consultation on widening automatic disqualification from trusteeship. Her reminder to the room was simple: trustees are responsible for their charities. The Commission regulates them; it doesn’t run them.

A royal presence

The meeting opened with a visit from HRH Princess Anne who spent time with representatives from charities across the sector before the formal business began. I’ll admit I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it chimed with something the Chair went on to say: trust in charities remains high at a time when trust in almost every other institution is falling. The Princess Royal has given decades to the sector: from founding the Carers Trust, to her long association with Save the Children, and the many organisations she serves as patron. Having her there said something about how seriously the work in that room is taken.

For a small organisation like City of Trees, moments like this matter. Being seen by the regulator, by funders, and by peers, is part of how a regional charity makes its case. And the Annual Public Meeting is one of the few places you’ll find all three in the same room.

Funding: the conversation nobody could avoid

Almost every conversation I had on the day, waiting for the VIP presentation, in the queue for coffee, and in the Q&A, came back to money. Statutory contracts are flat or shrinking, grant programmes are oversubscribed, and individual giving is holding up but increasingly concentrated among fewer, older donors. On top of that, as the Chair’s list of closures made plain, the organisations charities used to lean on for advice when income got tight are themselves disappearing.

What struck me is how few of the charities I spoke to had a reliable source of unrestricted income that they controlled. That’s why society lotteries and prize draws exist, to fill the gap. And it’s where my day job comes in.

Lotteries as unrestricted, recurring income

A society lottery is one of the few fundraising mechanisms that produces regular, unrestricted income month after month. Players sign up once, pay by direct debit, and stay, often for years. The money is not tied to a project or a reporting cycle; trustees can direct it to core costs, to reserves, or to the unglamorous infrastructure spending the Chair was pleading for. 

Gatherwell and StarVale, Jumbo Interactive’s two UK External Lottery Managers, have between them helped society lotteries raise more than £880 million for good causes. 

Gatherwell’s local authority and community lottery model, in particular, is built for exactly the kind of small, place-based organisations the Chair was describing: a shared platform, low cost of entry, and a licensed operator carrying the compliance burden.

Prize draws for organisations outside the lottery regime

Not every charity is in a position to run a society lottery, and not every supporter wants to commit to a subscription. That is why I have written before about the extension of the ELM model into prize draws. A well-run prize draw gives a cause access to a much wider audience, including corporate partners who want to attach their brand to a good outcome. 

Toyota’s Good For Cricket Prize Draw, delivered by Gatherwell, has raised over £500,000 for grassroots cricket clubs since 2025 with every penny of ticket sales going to the clubs. It’s the kind of income a small sports charity simply could not have generated on its own.

None of this replaces grants, contracts or donations; it sits alongside them. But when every other income line is under pressure, having one that’s recurring, unrestricted and managed by a specialist whilst offering something in return to supporters and lets a charity plan in years rather than months.

Governance: the burden is rising, not falling

On governance the message was blunt. Trustees carry the responsibility, the Commission will hold them to it, and the bar is rising. A 23% jump in compliance cases, a consultation to widen automatic disqualification, and a Chair prepared to act in the cross hairs of sensitive debates all point the same way. Add the new Charities SORP, live for financial years from 1 January 2026, and volunteer boards are carrying more than they have in years.

Fundraising is where the trustees I spoke to feel most exposed, and it’s not hard to see why. Gambling Commission licensing, Fundraising Regulator standards, data protection, player safeguarding, prize fulfilment, reserves, reporting. Each is a specialism. No volunteer board can be expert in all of them, and the bodies that used to help small charities through it are closing while the regulator’s own queues get longer.

That’s the other half of the case for a licensed External Lottery Manager, and the half that gets talked about less. When Gatherwell or StarVale runs a lottery or prize draw, we hold your hand with the Gambling Commission licensing, run the draw, handle player protection and age verification, manage the prize fund and file the returns. Trustees keep oversight, as they must. They don’t carry the operational and regulatory risk. For a board already stretched by SORP and a tougher regulator, that matters as much as the money.

It’s also why I keep putting time into the Prize Competitions Council. The Chair’s point about independence cuts both ways. Trust in a fundraising mechanism has to be earned through standards people can see, not just claimed. A sector with a credible code, and operators willing to be held to it, is one trustees can work with confidently.

Looking ahead

I left the meeting with a clearer picture than I arrived with. The Commission is being honest about its own constraints, and it is asking the sector to be equally honest about the fragility of the structures beneath it. The Chair’s line was that strong communities need strong charities. I’d add that strong charities need income they can rely on and governance they can actually carry.

For the charities I spoke to, including the one I was there to represent (City of Trees), the practical lesson was the same. Diversify income towards sources that are recurring and unrestricted, and do not take on regulatory risk that a specialist partner can carry for you. That’s what Gatherwell and StarVale have done for society lotteries for decades, and it’s what we’re now extending to prize draws for a much wider range of causes and partners.

Contact our team to talk through what a lottery or prize draw could do for your organisation, or just if you were at the Annual Public Meeting and would like to compare notes.