Charity minutes should cover seven things: the meeting's basic details, who attended and whether you had quorum (the minimum number of trustees needed to make decisions), any conflicts of interest declared, approval of the last minutes, matters carried over, the decisions made at this meeting (with exact wording and reasons), and the date of the next meeting. No law fixes the contents for most charities, but the Charity Commission's guidance (CC48) sets out what a well-run board should record. Use the template below to write tonight's minutes while the meeting is still fresh.
Does the law say what charity minutes must include?
Mostly, no. For most charities, minute content is a matter of good practice and your own governing document, not statute.
The main source is the Charity Commission's CC48, its guidance on charity meetings. It describes minutes as "the written legal record of what happened at your meeting" and says they don't need to be word-for-word, but they should cover a specific set of points — which is the checklist below, built around CC48's guidance. That's guidance, not law — CC48 uses "should", not "must", and this guide follows that word choice throughout.
There are two places the law does bite. If you're a charitable company, section 248 of the Companies Act 2006 requires you to keep minutes of directors' meetings for at least 10 years, and failing to do so is a criminal offence for the company's officers. If you're a CIO (Charitable Incorporated Organisation), the CIO General Regulations 2012 require you to keep minutes for at least 6 years — also a legal duty, per CC48. Everyone else — unincorporated associations and trusts — should keep minutes for at least 6 years as good practice, following CC48, even though there's no statute forcing it.
The 7 things every set of trustee minutes should cover (the template)
Copy this straight into a blank document tonight. Fill in each section as you go — you don't need to write it up hours later from memory.
1. Charity name, meeting type, date, time, and venue. Write the full legal name of the charity, whether this was a trustee board meeting, an AGM, or a sub-committee, and the exact date, start time, and location (or "held via video call"). If the meeting overran or started late, note the actual times, not the scheduled ones.
2. Attendance, apologies, and quorum confirmed. List every trustee by name and role (chair, treasurer, and so on), who sent apologies, and who was entirely absent. Then state plainly whether quorum was met — check your governing document for the number, and write down the figure you checked it against, for example "5 of 7 trustees present; quorum of 4 met."
3. Declarations of interest — who, on what, and what happened. For each declaration: name the trustee, describe the interest in one sentence, say whether they left the room or stayed silent during discussion, and note whether they voted. If nobody declared anything, write "No conflicts of interest were declared" rather than leaving the section out — a gap looks like an oversight later.
4. Approval of the previous minutes. Record that the minutes of the last meeting (name the date) were reviewed, whether any corrections were requested, and that the board approved them as an accurate record. If corrections were made, note what changed.
5. Matters arising and actions carried over. List any actions from the last meeting that are still open, who owns each one, and the date it's now due. If an action has slipped, say so and record the new date — don't just quietly reset the clock.
6. Each agenda item: the decision, the exact wording, the reasons, and who does what by when. For every substantive item, write down what was discussed in a sentence or two, then the decision itself in the exact words agreed (not your summary of it), the reasons the board gave for deciding that way, and any action arising — who's doing it and by when. This is the section that matters most if a decision is ever questioned later.
7. Date, time, and venue of the next meeting. Confirm it if it's already fixed, or record that it will be confirmed separately if not. Either way, don't leave the minutes without an answer to "when do we meet again?"
How much detail is too much?
Minutes record decisions and reasons, not a transcript. The test is whether someone who wasn't in the room — a new trustee in three years' time, or an auditor — can understand what was decided and why, without needing to know who said what to whom.
Too vague: "The board discussed the fundraising event and agreed to proceed."
Right level of detail: "The board agreed to proceed with the autumn fundraising dinner on a budget of £3,000, on the basis that last year's event raised £8,200 net. Sarah Cole to confirm the venue booking by 15 August."
The vague version tells a future reader nothing — not the amount, not why, not who's doing what next. The specific version answers all three in two sentences. That's the standard to aim for on every substantive item, not just the contentious ones.
The same goes for disagreement. CC48 recommends noting how trustees voted, because it helps you show later that the decision was properly made — and our own practical advice is that this matters most on anything contentious. You don't need to record every remark in a heated discussion, but if three trustees voted against a decision, write that down — "carried, 4 in favour, 3 against" — rather than smoothing it into "the board agreed."
What happens to minutes after the meeting
Send the draft to every trustee as soon as possible after the meeting, while it's still fresh — CC48 recommends this explicitly, and it catches errors while people remember the discussion. Whether trustees can approve items by email between meetings, rather than waiting for the next one, depends on what your own governing document allows, so check it before you rely on that.
At the next meeting, the board reviews the draft, agrees any corrections, and approves it as accurate. The chair then signs and dates the approved copy and it's stored safely. Signing isn't a statutory requirement for most charities, but it's the convention almost every governing document and the Commission's guidance point to, and it's the moment a set of minutes stops being a draft and becomes the record.
That record is what outlives the people in the room. Trustees serve for a few years and move on; the charity, and the reasons behind its decisions, carry on. Minutes are how a board five years from now understands why the current one sold that building, changed that policy, or turned down that grant — without having to ask someone who's long since left. Treat every set of minutes as a message to a trustee you haven't met yet.
Do this once, then let it run itself. Trustee Meetings is a simple board-meetings tool built for small UK charities. It keeps the agenda, papers, minutes and decisions of every meeting in one place, so the record outlives the people who wrote it. Free until your first board meeting is done — no card, no clock running. Then £180 a year (or £15 a month), every trustee included. Try it with your board
Common mistakes with charity minutes
Writing "agreed" without recording the decision's exact wording. Six months later nobody can say precisely what was approved — was it a budget "up to £5,000" or "of £5,000"? Write the resolution down in the words the board actually agreed.
Treating the conflicts-of-interest section as optional when nobody declares anything. An empty section looks like the board forgot to ask, not that there was nothing to declare. One line — "no conflicts declared" — closes that gap.
Losing actions between meetings. An action agreed in March with no owner or date drifts. By September nobody remembers whose job it was. Every action needs a name and a date attached at the point it's agreed, not chased down afterwards.
Minutes that read like a transcript of the discussion. Pages of "Jane said... then Tom responded..." bury the actual decision and make the minutes harder to use later, not more defensible. Summarise the discussion in a sentence, then record the decision properly.
No fixed home for the finished minutes. Paper copies in a drawer, or a folder that only the outgoing secretary can find, are the single biggest reason boards lose their own history. Wherever you keep them, make sure the next secretary knows where that is on day one.
Frequently asked questions
Do charity minutes need to be signed? There's no legal requirement to sign them, but it's standard good practice. The board approves the minutes as an accurate record at the next meeting, then the chair signs and dates them, and they're stored safely.
How long do we have to keep charity minutes? It depends on your legal structure. Charitable companies must keep minutes for at least 10 years under the Companies Act 2006 — that one is a legal duty, and failing to keep them is an offence. CIOs must also keep them at least 6 years under the CIO regulations. Unincorporated charities and trusts should keep them at least 6 years as good practice.
Should we email draft minutes to trustees before the next meeting? Yes — the Charity Commission recommends sending the draft to every trustee as soon as possible after the meeting, while it's fresh in everyone's mind. Whether trustees can approve business by email between meetings depends on what your governing document allows, so check that first.
What if a trustee forgets to declare a conflict of interest at the time? Record it as soon as it comes to light — in the minutes of the meeting where it's raised, noting what the conflict was and when it was identified. The board should then consider whether the earlier decision needs to be looked at again, because an undeclared conflict can mean a decision isn't valid.
Should minutes record how each trustee voted? The Charity Commission recommends it. Recording who proposed a decision, who seconded it, and roughly how the vote went helps you show later that the decision was properly made — this guide's own advice is that this matters most on anything contentious, and it's much easier to write down at the time than to reconstruct afterwards.
This guide covers England and Wales. Scottish charities should use OSCR's own guidance and resources, though OSCR takes the same governing-document-first approach and points to CC48 for detail. Charities in Northern Ireland are regulated separately by the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland (CCNI) — check its guidance rather than assuming these rules apply in full.
Want a running start on your own board's minutes, agendas, and papers? Use the free minutes template and the annotated agenda template; if you're new to the board, start with your first trustee board meeting. Or browse the full guides library and try it with your board.