Subject: Introducing the CIC Association CIC - Does your organisation want to know more about CICs?
Hello Everyone
This is just a short hello and introduction to the CIC Association CIC, we're a practitioner led CIC incorporated in Sep09. We have 800 or so members from across the country working in all sectors, and hope to build a central platform to accelerate awareness and use-ability of the CIC Form. Please let us know if you have any particular questions or issues, we hope to build the basic resources on CICs by collaboration and debate.
Eg. One of the biggest impacts CIC could potentially have for Charity in a wider sense is to help them reduce their VAT overhead. In many circumstances the VAT trail ends at the charity and it has to absorb the cost, whereas a CIC can pass this cost on. This type of thing can already be done via a trading subsidiary, but CIC has an asset lock, so could be perfect for transferring assets to (potentially very useful in transferring assets from local authority etc)
Another area I hope we can take forward is investment. CICs are easily packaged, and in isolation or combination with a Charity offer new ways to attract inward capital investment into the Third Sector.
We'd like to see if there is any support for developing these types of conversations, with the impending funding cuts the legislation offers new options for both macro and micro Third Sector issues.
We've grown from a motley crew of agitators to something that can transition into a positive central resource for the wider community, and I hope you'll benefit from/help us take that forward.
best regards
John Mulkerrin
Mark - well said! Can't be doing with these TLAs
Presuming that CIC means Community Interest Company, then I would certainly welcome more information/discussion. This may well be the way forward when other sources of funding seem to be falling away on all sides!
Touche' Mark
Think of it as another tool in the box, whether you'll use it is another matter 
The theory always outpaces the reality, it could (and really should) have a multi billion pound effect, but we've lacked any real strategy or leadership(outside the regulatory system which is pretty good). Im hoping to pick up central themes here and try and improve information dissemination, we've been getting more calls from charities recently looking for information and think a good central resource should be developed.
Eg- Charity will receive 500k asset from local authority, and needs to raise 90k more to get the project moving. They can use a CIC (or a Co-op for that matter) to provide a structure that local business/residents etc can invest in. There are non CIC ways to do this, but the asset is protected (CICs have a built in asset lock) and the company can trade without restriction. Im not sure why they cant get the final 90k from the Bank, but CIC sudsidiaries will allow for more innovation, within a controlled risk environment for the parent Charity.
As time progresses there will be CICs that progress into being Charities (and vice versa), CICs been around for five years now, and im suprised more hasnt been done to show Charity how it can be used. The advice that is out there is patchy, but things are improving. We're at roughly 4000 CICs now and growing monthly which means we're just about becoming a viable group to 'do business with'.
Know how non profit is part of the work to improve Charity Effectiveness, so I hope to learn a lot from the members here.
John
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