Charity Facts

Charities and political campaigning


Charities are not allowed to have directly political aims, so an organisation that is set up to change the law cannot be registered as a charity.

Provided political activity is clearly designed to promote its charitable purposes, a charity is allowed to provide MPs with non-partisan information, advice and reasoned argument, to lobby MPs to support its cause and to educate the public about the issues it is addressing.

This ‘grey’ set of rules means that some household name organisations like Greenpeace UK, Amnesty International UK and Friends of the Earth are not registered charities - their objectives mean they have to be free to campaign for changes in the law.

However, some parts of what they do (like their education and research work) can be defined as charitable, so in many cases campaigning organisations set up separate charities in parallel to their main organisation to carry out this work (and obtain the associated tax advantages).