The search for dormant money from charities, which are no longer operating in Scotland, to redistribute to similar good causes has been stepped up.

The Scottish Charity Regulator and Foundation Scotland are urging legal and other professional advisors and trustees of charities to help release “significant money lying dormant” in defunct charities’ accounts.

The two organisations have made the call through their collaborative Revitalising Trusts project, which has already released more than £5m of dormant charity money for public good.

More than 300 inactive charitable trusts have already been identified since the project launched four years ago.

They warn that often redistributed funding had been “lying dormant in accounts for several decades and in some cases well over a century”.

But finding dormant money relies on the support of legal firms managing “hundreds of historic charitable trusts which exist across Scotland”.

Among recent funding awards through the project was to charities in Peterhead, working with local legal firm Masson Glennie.

This included a donation of £11,900 made to Peterhead RNLI in December last year from the Peterhead Harbour Medical Health Care Trust, which was set up in 1988 to provide medical equipment to rescue and first aid services but closed last year.

RNLI among charities to benefit

The project identified that the local RNLI lifeboat station would be a natural fit for these funds.

“We are extremely grateful to everyone involved with the Revitalising Trusts Project for recognising our lifesaving work and continuing to make it possible,” said Peterhead RNLI lifeboat operations manager Gary Culkin.

“This donation could cover more than half of Peterhead RNLI’s annual costs to train and equip our crew in 2025, or approximately 10% of the station’s overheads.

“In terms of a single donation, this goes a long way to supporting the lifeboat and its crew for another year.”

OSCR policy manager Steve Kent, who visited Peterhead RNLI last year, said: “Of the many things we have to do as a regulator, none is more rewarding than working with Foundation Scotland to track down historic underused charitable funds and find new ways of putting them to good use.

“The donors and philanthropists of the past may not always have been able to envision the challenges that would face future generations, but one thing we can be sure of is that they would have wished their money to make real differences to people’s lives. We are proudly and diligently helping to ensure this happens.

“The Revitalising Trusts Project works across the country and is often dependent on the support of local legal firms who manage a network of historic trusts set up years ago by clients with specific charitable wishes.”

He added: “ We are confident that there is plenty more still to be found and would encourage other legal firms across Scotland to get in touch, as we would be delighted to help support the revitalisation of any dormant Trusts they manage.”

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