Advising clients

Clear, simple giving options you can confidently share with your clients.

Supporting your clients’ giving

Clients increasingly expect their advisers to be able to talk about charitable giving with confidence.

Point North is the community foundation serving County Durham and Tees Valley.

We help people and businesses support local charities and community organisations, with a mission to fight poverty and enrich lives.

If you’re a solicitor, accountant, financial planner or wealth adviser, we can help when a client wants to give but needs support deciding where to begin or how to organise it.

You bring knowledge of your client’s circumstances and provide professional advice. We help them explore local needs and giving options, then manage the charitable funding.

Why advisers choose Point North

Giving options shaped around your client

From one-off gifts to Named Funds, we help clients organise giving around the places and causes they care about.

We discuss their wishes, preferred involvement and timescale, and explain how the available arrangements work.

Local expertise you can count on

We have worked with charities and community organisations across County Durham and Tees Valley for more than 30 years.

We can help your client discover local work they may not otherwise encounter and understand where their support could be useful.

Due diligence and grant management

We assess funding applications, carry out due diligence and manage grants and reporting.

This gives you and your client a way to support local organisations without undertaking those assessments or administering grants yourselves.

Support when circumstances change

A business sale, inheritance, making a will or losing someone can prompt questions about giving.

We help you explore the charitable options with your client, alongside your professional advice.

We keep giving simple, meaningful and rooted in the needs of our local communities.

When we can help

Your client may have a specific organisation in mind, want to support a particular place or need help exploring what matters to them.

We work with advisers whose clients want to:

Make a donation during their lifetime.
Include charitable giving in their Will.
Support the community where they live, grew up or built a business.
Involve family members in giving.
Establish a fund in their own name or someone else’s memory.
Take a longer-term approach to supporting local communities.

They don’t need to have chosen a cause or decided how much to give before you speak to us.

Ways your client can give

Clients can make one-off or regular donations, establish a Named Fund, give in memory or include Point North in their Will.

A Named Fund provides a way to organise giving around an agreed charitable purpose without establishing a separate charity.

It can carry a name chosen by the donor and support places or issues that matter to them, with opportunities for family members or colleagues to participate.

Clients can also donate shares, property or other assets. Please speak to us before arranging a gift so we can explain the requirements and process.

Working together

We understand that introducing another organisation means placing trust in how it will work with your client.

Your legal, financial or tax advice remains central. Our role is to contribute charitable expertise and local knowledge, and to manage the giving arrangement agreed with your client.

You can speak to us first, arrange a joint meeting or introduce your client directly. We agree how you will be involved and how communication will work.

There’s no obligation, and you can discuss a situation without identifying your client.

Working with Point North

For more in depth information about working with Point North click the button.

Take the next step

If you’re a professional adviser and would like to explore giving options for your clients get in touch with Jane or Sarah using the email addresses below, or call us on 0191 378 6340.