Navigate the 2026 fundraising and employment changes for your charity

The Fundraising Regulator's new Code of Fundraising Practice took effect on 1 November 2025 and applies to complaints received on or after that date. It replaces the previous rulebook-style code with a shorter, principles-based version - about 45% shorter, with more signposting to the underlying legal requirements rather than restating them. If your fundraising policies and staff training still reference the old code's clause numbers, they need updating.

Two additions are worth flagging specifically. There is a new rule requiring you to protect your fundraisers - staff, volunteers, and any agency or third-party fundraisers acting for you - from harm and harassment while they are fundraising. There is also a new expectation that you engage constructively with the Fundraising Regulator if it investigates a complaint about your fundraising. New sections on "convenience giving" also formalise how you should handle unstaffed or automated collection methods - static collection points, tap-to-donate devices, and similar unattended fundraising.

Using AI in your fundraising

Alongside the new code, the Fundraising Regulator published dedicated guidance in December 2025 on using artificial intelligence in fundraising - the first time it has addressed AI specifically. If your charity uses AI tools anywhere in fundraising (drafting appeals, generating images or video, running chatbots for donor queries, or personalising campaigns), you are expected to have an AI policy, agreed and ideally published, that a person checks AI-generated output for accuracy and fairness before it goes out, and that you are transparent with donors when content is AI-generated so they do not mistake it for a genuine situation or person. This accountability extends to AI use by any third-party fundraiser acting on your behalf, not just your own staff. Trustees are expected to be involved in the strategic decision to adopt AI tools, not just delegate it operationally.

If any part of your fundraising is carried out by a professional fundraiser or a commercial participator - an agency, a telephone or door-to-door fundraising contractor, or a company running a promotion where some of the proceeds go to you - your written agreements with them need to reflect the new code's expectations and your own accountability for their conduct, including any AI use on your behalf. This is also a good point to check your agreements set out clearly how the fundraiser will represent your charity, what standards of conduct apply, and how quickly problems are escalated to you.

The Charity Commission has refreshed CC20 ("Charity fundraising: a guide to trustee duties") to align with the new code, cutting it from around 11,000 words to roughly 4,000 and reorganising it around six core principles for trustee oversight of fundraising: planning your fundraising, supervising anyone who fundraises on your behalf (including professional fundraisers), and managing reputational risk. It also gives clearer practical guidance on what to do about under-funded or over-funded appeals, reflecting the Charities Act 2022 changes to that area.

Use this as the basis for your board's next review of fundraising oversight - trustees are expected to take an active role, not simply delegate fundraising decisions to staff and receive reports after the fact.

The final tranche of Charities Act 2022 reforms came into force on 27 November 2025, completing the Act's implementation. The headline change is a new power for trustees to make small ex gratia payments - payments where you have a moral but no legal obligation to pay - without needing prior authorisation from the Charity Commission, the court, or the Attorney General, provided you meet the legal test and stay within the relevant threshold.

The rules on delegating this decision have also changed - trustees can now delegate a decision on an ex gratia payment to staff or a sub-committee, provided the moral-obligation test is still applied objectively. Note that this power is currently excluded for certain museum, gallery, and named cultural institutions' collections, reflecting concerns about irreversible disposals of cultural property - if that applies to your charity, check the current position before relying on the small-payments power.

As a charity employer, the Employment Rights Act 2025 applies to you in exactly the same way as any other employer - your charitable status gives you no exemption. Two changes are worth planning for now given typically lean charity HR resourcing.

From 1 October 2026, you become liable for harassment of your staff by third parties - service users, beneficiaries, donors, members of the public, or contractors - where you have not taken all reasonable steps to prevent it. For a charity, this is particularly relevant if your staff or volunteers work with vulnerable service users, run public-facing services, or staff collection points and shops where they deal with the public directly.

Separately, from 6 April 2026, Statutory Sick Pay becomes a genuine day-one right for every employee, with the three-day waiting period and the lower earnings limit both removed. If you employ part-time or low-paid staff who previously fell below the earnings threshold - common in charity retail and community-facing roles - they become newly eligible, and your payroll system and sickness absence policy both need updating.

Charities rely on volunteers more than almost any other sector, and getting the volunteer/worker boundary wrong is a recurring risk - not just for pay and holiday entitlement, but because the Employment Rights Act 2025 duties above (third-party harassment, day-one SSP, and other day-one rights) apply to employees and workers, not genuine volunteers. A person is more likely to be found a worker, not a volunteer, if they are contractually obliged to attend and perform tasks, receive anything beyond genuine out-of-pocket expenses, or would face a real sanction for not turning up. Reward-only arrangements, fully optional attendance, and expense-only reimbursement all support genuine volunteer status; anything that starts to look like a rota with consequences for non-attendance does not.

Review your volunteer agreements and expense policies with this distinction in mind - a "volunteer agreement" that reads like an employment contract will not protect you from a tribunal finding worker status.