What do you need to do when you receive a donation?
You can only accept donations from certain sources, which are mainly UK-based.1
Please see Who can you accept donations from? for details on which sources are permissible.
Before you accept any donation of more than £500, you must take all reasonable steps to:
make sure you know the true identity of the donor
check that the donation is from a permissible source2
Where you receive a donation on behalf of someone else, we call the individual or organisation giving the donation to the campaigner an agent. The agent must provide you with the necessary details of the true donor so you can check the permissibility and report the details.3
If it is not completely clear who you should treat as the donor, you should check the facts to make sure.
How long do you have to check permissibility?
When you receive a donation, you have 30 days to check that the donor is permissible and return it if it is impermissible.
Even if you have made a permissibility check in connection with an earlier donation from the same source, you should make a fresh check for each subsequent donation. This is because the status of donors can change, particularly if a previous donation was some time ago.
You should keep a record of all your permissibility checks to show that you have followed the law.