Balancing the demands of family and corporate foundations and the wishes of founders and corporate creators can be complicated. And when you're meeting these expectations with compliance and best practice in mind, this often creates competing tensions. 
 

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Take it from us

With the right legal team at your side, you can focus on the good stuff: the life-changing and philanthropic work that truly matters. Dealing with charity law and its regulations shouldn’t compromise your vision or limit your impact.

Your family and corporate foundations team

From inception to long-term management, you need the reassurance of expertise that covers the full life-cycle of charitable foundations.

Here’s how our expertise can help:

  • Advising on the right structure for your foundation
  • Consulting on the control mechanisms in place between the charity and its founder to ensure that the charity continues to benefit from the Founder's vision
  • Establishing the foundation and registering organisations with the Charity Commission and HMRC
  • Guiding on the terms of the initial funding of the foundation and subsequent gifts
  • Instructing on the structure of the Board and ensuring the foundation can benefit from the right blend of skills and experience
  • Adopting the right policies and procedures to ensure the foundation meets the Charity Commission's standard of best practice without taking the fun out of the project
  • All aspects of good grant-making – from due diligence processes, implementing appropriate grant terms and conditions and getting the monitoring and evaluation right
  • Working with the board to ensure that they understand their duties and responsibilities and deal with succession challenges in a considered way
  • Consulting on endowment funds – whether permanent or expendable.
In need of a family and corporate foundations lawyer? Look no further.
At Womble Bond Dickinson we have an exceptional team of talented lawyers and business professionals who can offer guidance and find the solutions right for your business. We have both broad and niche expertise across all our UK and US offices.
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The proof's in our experience

  • New corporate foundations, establishing and putting in place the necessary processes and policies to ensure that they run smoothly
  • Charities that may be subject to regulatory scrutiny by the Charity Commission because of unmanaged conflicts of interest
  • Corporate foundations, advising on operating agreements between their related corporate founder on the arrangements in place in relation to sharing of brand, staff, space, and facilities, as well as advising employee donation matching schemes
  • Families, advising long established family donations on succession planning issues to try to energise and engage the next generation in the work of the family foundation
  • International 'friends' organisations, advising on their establishment and tax efficient giving by donors in the UK and overseas.
Testimonials

'The team and individual expertise is second to none. Response times are first class and our queries which span more than one representative always come back in a structured, well-informed way.'

Legal 500, North, 2025

"Womble Bond Dickinson provides exceptional service. The team have an ability to quickly understand and handle highly complex needs with a holistic approach to advice and work." 

Chambers and Partners, UK Wide, 2024