My Charity Commission Account - guidance for charity contacts
Source: gov.uk (2025-02-13)

How to set up and use your new 'Charity Commission Account' and manage other users’ access and permissions.

Request an account

Every user will need to set up their own ‘My Charity Commission Account’ using an individual email address and password (we will send your access code to this email address each time you sign in).

You can request a link to set up your account (https://my-charity-account.charitycommission.gov.uk/request-account). You will need to give us an email address that only you use. If you want to change your email address after you’ve set up your account, you will need to amend this using the ‘replace or recover your email address’ link on the sign in page.

Set up your account

Look out for an email with your setup link for ‘My Charity Commission Account’ (MCCA). While setting up your account, you will be asked to validate your date of birth and create your own password.

Validate your date of birth

We will ask you to confirm your date of birth so we can verify who you are.

If the date of birth you enter is not accepted, this might be because it was not registered correctly.

You will need to call us on xx-xxxx-xxxx (our lines are open Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm) so we can amend it for you.

Create a password

Please make sure your password has at least:
- 10 characters
- 1 number
- 1 uppercase letter
Enable my administrator permissions

Whether you are a primary, super or user administrator, you need to confirm that you are authorised by your trustees to have this access before using certain services.

You will be presented with steps to enable administrator permissions upon logging in to My Charity Commission Account:
- Tick the box to confirm you have authority to be an administrator and click on ‘continue’
- Tick the box to accept your responsibility as a data controller for your charity and click on ‘continue’
- You will get a message saying we’ve notified all your charity’s trustees that you’ve enabled your administrator permissions
Access and permissions

As a charity contact, you will be able to:
- access all online services for your charity (or charities) where you are the registered contact
- view and edit trustee information, except when a trustee has blocked access to their personal information through their account
- view and edit personal information on third party user accounts linked to your charity (so long as they are not also linked to other charities)
- invite trustees to set up their accounts
- invite third-party users to set up their accounts and manage their access to different services
- grant additional administrative permissions (#admin) to other appropriate users within your charity
Change contacts

If you are no longer the charity contact, you need to add the new contact to your charity in ‘Update Charity Details’ and update your role with your charity.

If you no longer work with the charity, you will keep your account but won’t be able to see the charity the next time you sign in. The charity and all your permissions to access services on its behalf will be removed from your account.

The new contact will become the primary administrator for your charity.
- if they don’t have an account, they can request a link (#requestlink)
- if they already have an account, they will be given full access once they enable their administrator permissions (#enable)
Invite trustees to set up an account

All individual trustees can have an account to access online services on behalf of their charity or charities. They will be granted full access to all services except they won’t be able to view or edit other trustees’ personal details.

If you have enabled your administrator permissions, you can invite your trustees to set up an account.

Steps to invite trustees

Existing trustees:
- Sign in to MCCA
- Go to your homepage for the charity
- Scroll down and select ‘User Administration’
- Select ‘Add trustees to the portal’
- You will see a list of your charity’s trustees – select all those you want to invite
- Click on ‘Invite’
- You will get a message confirming that your trustees have been invited. The selected trustees will each get an email with a link to set up their accounts
Video - Invite your trustees to set up their accounts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAqtaxY_9HQ)

Resending links to trustees

If a trustee hasn’t received their setup link or can’t find it, you can resend the link.
- Sign in to MCCA
- Go to your homepage for the charity
- Scroll down and click on ‘User Administration’
- Tick the ‘inactive users’ box (under the ‘search users’ bar)
- Click on the ‘search users’ magnifying glass (entering a name is optional)
- You will see a list of all users who haven’t yet set up an account
- Click on ‘resend invitation’ next to the name of the person who needs a link
New trustees

When you add a new trustee through ‘Update charity details’, or via the ‘add or remove a trustee or contact’ tile on your My Charity Commission Account homepage, they will automatically receive a link to set up an account. All trustees can have an account to access online services on behalf of their charity or charities.

Trustees of multiple charities

If your trustee works with multiple charities, but they can’t see your charity listed on their account, you might need to amend their personal details so they are identical to those recorded for the charities that are listed. This includes ensuring they are using the same email address for all their charities.

Corporate trustees

A corporate entity can’t have a Charity Commission Account, this includes corporate trustees. However, any individuals acting on behalf of a charity with a corporate trustee can have an account and access to online services as required.

Charity contacts can have full access as usual. Anyone else who needs access can be granted an account and access as a third-party user.

As there are no individual trustees, no one at the charity can be granted trustee access.

Grant access to third-party users

If you have enabled your administrator permissions, you can invite third-party users to set up an account and grant them access to different services on behalf of your charity.

Steps to invite third-party users to set up an account
- Sign in to MCCA
- Go to your homepage for the charity
- Scroll down to ‘Administration’ section and click on ‘Invite a trusted third-party to set up a My Charity Commission Account’
- Enter the user’s email address, then ‘Save and continue’
- Add the user’s name then ‘Save and continue’
- Select the services they will have access to and whether they have ‘view’ or ‘edit’ permissions then ‘Save and continue’
- You will then see a preview of what you have entered for this user, if it is correct, ‘Confirm and send invitation’
- You will get a message confirming that the user has been added and sent an invitation
If this user already has an account, you need to follow the same steps. They won’t receive another invitation, but will be added to your charity.

If the email address you entered is already linked to an account that doesn’t belong to the person you are adding, you need a different email address. You will need to ask the user you are adding to provide an email address that only they use.

Grant third-party users access to additional services

If a third-party user needs access or a different level of access to an online service, you can grant this by following these steps.

Steps to granting access to online services
- Sign in to MCCA
- Go to your homepage for the charity
- Scroll down to ‘Administration’ section and click on ‘Update trusted third-party’s permissions’
- Select ‘change details’ next to the name of the person being granted this access
- Under ‘user permissions for this charity’, go to ‘Additional permissions granted at this charity’ and select ‘change’
- This page allows you to amend their permissions or access to other services
- Once you have updated permissions, select ‘save and continue’
- You will get a notification that user permissions have been updated and saved
Grant administrator permissions to other users

We recommend that another user within a charity is granted additional administrator permissions. This user can be a trustee or third-party (#thirdparty).

This will enable the charity to continue to grant users access if the charity contact is absent or no longer involved with your charity.

The charity contact can nominate:
- one ‘super administrator’ – who will have the same access and permissions as the charity contact
Consider who is most appropriate for your own charity, taking your charity’s GDPR policy into account, the roles of the individuals concerned and their knowledge and understanding of your charity.

If you are granted administrator permissions, when you next sign-in, you will be asked to confirm that you are authorised by your trustees to have this access.

Steps to grant administrator permissions
- Sign in to MCCA
- Go to your homepage for the charity
- Scroll down to ‘Administration’ section and click on ‘View or add account administrators for this charity’
- Select ‘update your account administrators’ at the bottom of the page
- Next to the name of the user select ‘Add administrator permissions’
- Click ‘continue’ to confirm changes’
- The next time the user logs in they will be asked to confirm that they are authorised by the trustees to have this access
Common issues

Find help with common issues (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/my-charity-commission-account-common-issues) when signing into and using your account.

Sign in to Charity Commission online services (https://my-charity-account.charitycommission.gov.uk/)