Live discussion: when and how should your charity borrow money?

Sometimes organisations need to borrow money in order to grow or adapt to changing circumstances – and charities are no exception.

Maybe a charity needs to borrow money to buy its premises, reduce its rent and make its cashflow easier. Or perhaps new operating conditions require an improved finance or IT system which can only be paid for in the short term through borrowing.

Trustees and charity leaders also need to consider what kinds of borrowing are most appropriate. As Reema Mathur wrote in an article about borrowing earlier this year, these can include overdraft facilities, term loans, and revolving credit facilities, plus social finance and social investment.

This live Q&A will look at:

Common mistakes made by charities when borrowing money.

Different forms of borrowing available.

What lenders look for when considering applications from charities.

If you'd like to be on the expert panel, please contact Helen Crane, and if you'd like to leave a question, please email or write in the comments section below.

Expert panel

Ian Mansfield, Charities Aid Foundation

Ian is senior client relations manager at Charities Aid Foundation, managing a team of specialists dealing with both lending and investments. His approach to lending is built on 26 years experience in relationship banking having previously worked in the retail banking sector dealing with both SMEs and charitable organisations.

Twitter: @cafonline

David Hopkins, Charities Aid Foundation

David heads up the Charities Aid Foundation's charities and grant making solutions team. He has over 15 years experience in the not for profit sector and has direct experience of managing grant making programmes in excess of £12m annually.

His approach is rooted in hands-on experience ranging from capacity building with grassroots community organisations to strategy development driving change within the public sector. Having spent more than three years working for a charity sector umbrella body he has advised and consulted across a wide range of areas including charity governance and registration; exit planning; organisational, project and policy development; grant management; and monitoring and evaluation.

Twitter: @cafonline

Helena Wilkinson, Price Bailey

Helena is a partner specialising in advising not-for-profit organisations. She has commercial and practical experience gained from her time as a finance director, as well as an auditor. She has particular knowledge of the challenges and conflicts faced by a director of finance.

Twitter: @Price_Bailey

David McHattie, Barclays

David has over 30 years' experience of international and corporate banking with Barclays. He leads a team of nationwide Relationship Directors, responsible for providing banking services to the charities sector delivering a range of solutions from bank debt and capital markets through to day to day banking and deposits

Twitter: @BarCorp_News

Reema Mathur, Stone King

Reema is an associate solicitor in the Charity & Social Enterprise team at Stone King. She acts for charities, CICs and social enterprises, ranging from start-ups to historic and international charities. She is experienced in charity registrations, contentious and non-contentious governance and constitutional issues, arrangements between charities and commercial partners, structural re-organisations, funding and trading issues as well as mergers and collaborative working.

Reema trained and practised for a number of years at a magic circle firm, before specialising in charity law. Her corporate and banking experience provides a commercial underpinning to her understanding of the sector.

Twitter: @StoneKingLLP

Nigel Morrison, Grant Thornton UK LLP

Nigel is a partner in the firm's advisory team. He specialises in advising organisations, businesses and lenders where financial pressures are evident. In recent years he has worked with a number of UK charities and their funders covering operational and financial restructuring, mergers and acquisitions and formal insolvencies, with particular experience of the specific issues that arise when charities are facing financial difficulties.

Twitter: @GrantThorntonUK

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