Hi Everyone,

I am considering the relative merits of setting up a Charity (to provide a community service) alongside a Ltd. Company that I run.  I am planning to be a Trustee of the Charity. I am a Director & Shareholder of the Company.  I understand that Trustees generally should not / cannot be paid by the Charity.

Our proposed Charity expects to provide educational services (life skills) to schools FREE of charge (or at nominal charge).  The educational services will be mostly in the form of videos and/or online training courses which have been developed by the Company.  The proposal is for the Company to licence the courses to the Charity to allow it to provide the training services to the schools either FREE or at an affordable rate.  The Charity would need to pay to use the licence.  In essence funds raised by the Charity will be used to ensure that the schools can access the Company's content either FREE or at a significant discount.  Is that acceptable by the Charity Commission in general, but specifically given that ultimately the licence fees are being paid to a company from which I (being a Director) will ultimately receive benefit?

In case the above proposed structure is deemed to provide a conflict of interests, would the licencing structure work if I was not a Trustee of the Charity, and had involvement only from a non-voting perspective, say company sec/admin role?  (Assuming, of course, that at that point the Trustees decide it makes sense to pay to licence the IP to provide the services to the schools).

Many thanks for any thoughts on above.

Jonathan