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Rawthey Statement: Charitable Status - 26th Nov 2026

The Rawthey Project has operated as a Community Interest Company since 2022. We have twice

worked with the Charity Commission of England & Wales to scope the feasibility of becoming a

registered charity, each time with separate teams of very capable volunteers from the private and

third sectors, supported by consultants in this area who volunteered their time free of charge.

There are approximately 2,000 military charities in England & Wales. A primary requirement of the

charity commission (endorsed by COBSEO) is to demonstrate that the charitable purpose being

proposed isn’t already delivered by an existing charity. This is nuanced; we must prove what we

do, not what others don’t, and there’s currently no mechanism to evidence where established

charities are failing to meet the needs of veterans in the areas we operate.

The Charity Commission require new charities to declare the projected salaries and operating

costs as a metric for how they measure governance eOicacy. Rawthey is a 100% volunteer

organisation and nobody takes a salary or expenses. To meet the Charity Commission governance

mandate for military registered charities, it was assessed we would need to move to 40% of our

income to be used to pay full time salaries and expenses.

Operationally, the Charity Commission understandably requires rigid structures for wider

compliance. The Rawthey Executive have assessed these requirements to be unnecessary for the

size of our operation and potentially prohibitive to maintaining our agility and unique benefits of

peer mentors being empowered to use their initiative and life experience to problem solve and

meet the needs of our beneficiaries.

Deep in the ethos of Rawthey since incorporation has been that veterans shouldn’t have to beg to

get the support they rightfully expect when returning from war. We deliberately don’t ‘bucket

rattle’. As a result, our beneficiaries have a reduced stigma of accepting charity and understand

it’s the good will of a grateful nation and their peers that help us to do what we do.

Whilst we accept that this decision will limit our access to a wide range of grant funding and the

benefit of gift aid, we’ve concluded the benefits of registered charity status can be achieved

through effective teaming with partners who are registered charities and by retaining our agility,

ethos and independence we’re able to better meet the needs of our beneficiaries as a Community

Interest Company.

Brian Capstick

Founder and Project Manager