IBFI applies for charity status

The IBFI has always been a not-for-profit and always will be. But until now it was out of choice.

Becoming a charity was always the goal, but in the formative years of the IBFI the extra admin required to run a charity, and the costs involved in the application process, made it incredibly difficult.

With the incredible growth we’ve achieved over the last few years, we’re now in a much stronger position to take that next step. Running as a notfor-profit while being very careful with our spending has allowed us to build up the necessary funds to pay for the application process. And the expansion of our legion of volunteers has spread the workload between more people, allowing us to better absorb the additional admin required of a registered charity.

This month the IBFI officially engaged legal representation to begin the process of becoming a registered charity in the UK. This is a huge step forwards in formalising our objectives and enshrining our not-for-profit ethos into the corporate structure of the organisation. Becoming a charity will allow the IBFI to accept donations and significantly reduce our tax burden, meaning we can spend more of that money on promoting bike fitting and bike fitters.

The process is expected to take around four months and will involve the creation of an entirely new Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). The current legal entity behind the IBFI, The Bike Fitting Company Ltd, will then be gifted to the CIO, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. With a small restructure, the entire running of the IBFI will then fall under the umbrella of the registered charity.

A little IBFI history for you – the UK (where the IBFI was formed) restricts the use of certain terminology in business names, meaning it was impossible to use the term ‘Institute’ when we first incorporated. The solution was to form a limited company with a different name and then establish the IBFI as a trading name or ‘trading as’ (known in the USA as ‘doing business as’ or DBA). This restriction is eased when applying for charitable status so we’re hoping the new charity will carry the name everyone knows us by – the International Bike Fitting Institute.

So will this new charitable status mean US residents will be able to donate to the IBFI charity and claim the donation back against their tax bill? In all honesty, we’re not sure yet. The process of donating to a UK charity from the US became more complicated in recent years but we’re exploring our options to ensure this is a possibility, including the formation of a US arm of the charitable organisation. We’ll keep you updated as things develop.