Money, political parties and the law
Right now, there is no formal, official political party to speak of, so our activities are not covered by Electoral Commission rules or laws around political campaigning. We are, for all intents and purposes, acting as private individuals or, at worst, as "unincorporated associations."
Legally and financially speaking, then, you are basically fine to collect money on behalf of someone else as a ‘gift’ without needing to report it to anyone, since your organising is not managing a business.
Using the OpenCollective platform to manage funds
OpenCollective is a technical platform for transparently accounting for shared funds. You can connect your bank account, or use the bank account of another volunteer organisation from the platform (a 'fiscal host') and then transfer the money on to your own account to pay for specific expenses. Many activist groups use OpenCollective.
Using crowdfunding platforms to raise funds
You can normally connect your personal bank account to crowdfunding platforms.
- Chuffed.org is used by lots of activists and gives you quick access to money.
- Crowdfunder.co.uk allows directly connecting a bank account, but it only pays out at the end of the crowd-funder.
Learn more about raising funds:
- https://activisthandbook.org/organising/fundraising/crowdfunding
- A list of Fundraising Resources for movements from Climate 2025
Banks, accounting, tax things
It's possible to get a shared bank account for 'community associations' and similar wordings. A few banks like Metro and maybe Nationwide have an offer of this, and they variously want letters written and things like that.
It's also possible to just nominate a person whose personal bank account will be used to store funds. Tax-wise, money transferred in and out of a personal bank account for non-profit organising count as 'personal gifts' and basically don't need to be reported, and are not taxable, unless you begin selling stuff or investing in businesses.