With reversals in the economy, the sector has seen an increased reliance on fundraising and charity supporters are increasingly turning to unusual or extreme activities to raise profile and bring in money. Charity insurance specialist Martyn Turner explains how to go to extremes, with caution.

All sorts of factors have had their impact on the income of charities and not-for-profit organisations. With pressure to deliver more for less and some of the traditional sources of finance becoming severely limited, there will inevitably be a greater dependence on fundraising. This in turn has made the environment for fundraising increasingly competitive.  Charities and their supporters may need to be more creative in their thinking and, inevitably, the attraction of more hazardous fundraising activities may well increase.

If you are contemplating some of the more off-the-wall fundraising ideas, you may initially find that your trustees or management body throw up their hands in horror and start uttering warnings about health and safety and liability. The good news is that while you might expect an insurer to err on the side of caution, our message is that with good risk management it is possible to go to extremes safely.

Generally, the risk element for a charity depends on its involvement in the organisation and execution of the activity: the higher the involvement, the greater the exposure to risk. Logically then, by handing all of this over to a specialist third party provider, you should be able to distance yourself from risk. In theory, the use of a specialist event organiser creates a legal firebreak should a participant or spectator be injured at the event as liability should rest with the contractor rather than the charity client.