Using a charity to run folding?
Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 4:19 pm
Has anyone here already considered (or indeed created) a United Kingdom charity for the purpose of volunteering computing resources to F@h or other medical research projects? After a brief read of the UK Charity Commission’s website it seems possible that such a charity would meet their requirements for ‘purpose’ and ‘public benefit’.
There could be several large financial benefits if folding was being run as a charitable endeavour. For each £1000 donated to a charity, they could claim back £250 gift aid from HMRC and a further £1000 as charity matching from eligible employers and then purchase computer equipment zero VAT rated to give an equivalent of £2700 spending power on hardware (or £2250 on energy since I don’t think there is a VAT saving over what consumers already pay).
Does anyone see an obvious flaw in this arrangement? If not, I’m tempted to give it a go on an individual scale, but I could also see potential for a larger scale ‘colocation’ type service that others could donate to.
There could be several large financial benefits if folding was being run as a charitable endeavour. For each £1000 donated to a charity, they could claim back £250 gift aid from HMRC and a further £1000 as charity matching from eligible employers and then purchase computer equipment zero VAT rated to give an equivalent of £2700 spending power on hardware (or £2250 on energy since I don’t think there is a VAT saving over what consumers already pay).
Does anyone see an obvious flaw in this arrangement? If not, I’m tempted to give it a go on an individual scale, but I could also see potential for a larger scale ‘colocation’ type service that others could donate to.
