I am very pleased to say that we’ve received the significant notification that we’ve been granted registered charity status by The Charity Commission. Becoming a charity is something we’ve long talked about at Tinder Foundation as it fits with our ethos of supporting people to improve their lives for the better, something we do on a daily basis together with our hard working network of community partners. While our ethos has always been charitable, it has had one distinct twist – with staff playing a key role in the organisation’s decision making through sitting on the board, and being Members of the organisation voting on all key decisions. For us, if we were to become a charity it was vital that we were able to retain our mutual status, as this really sums up what we stand for – that everyone’s opinion matters. And as Members (that’s all the staff and the rest of our Board), we’ve all voted to become a charity.

The team and the Board celebrating our fourth birthday at our AGM in December 2015

This is a really big deal, and I want to shout about it. Persuading the charity commission that we’re able to have paid employees on our Board, and persuading them that’s a good thing and will make for better decision making and better outcomes, was hard. But we’re always proud to be pushing the boundaries if that impacts in something that’s better.

We even got a quote from the Minister for Civil Society, Rob Wilson, for our press release: “It is inspiring to see the Tinder Foundation breaking new ground and embracing its new charity status. By becoming a charity as well as retaining its mutual status, Tinder Foundation is helping hundreds of people to become more involved in their communities while also helping to build a more compassionate society.”

The journey has been a long and challenging one, and I’d really like to thank the Members of Tinder Foundation who have led on this endeavour. There’s always more work to be done and becoming a charity was just another step in our mission to reach the 12.6 million socially excluded people without digital skills across the UK.