Extraordinary achievement, and a testimony to all those involved of their love of photography and the need for a photographic community. I hope we all do our best to make this work, and judging by those that have already registered to use the site that is happening. I will be grateful for a continued opportunity to grow in this craft and connect with others.
As far as I am concerned, I would regard any financial contribution that I might make as a donation in recognition of the generosity of those volunteers running the site. I imagine that the donation would go to defray expenses like rental of server space, etc, and I would not expect any personal facilities, privileges or other benefits.
In England and Wales, a charity is an organisation that is:
established for charitable purposes only, and subject to the High Court’s charity law jurisdiction
Purposes are what your charity is set up to achieve - they are explained in your governing document. To be charitable, your charity’s purposes must:
fall within the descriptions of purposes
be for the public benefit
As to what the 'public benefit' means, you can read up here
The legal opinion on what public benefit means is:
“To ascertain whether a gift constitutes a valid charitable trust so as to escape being void on the ground of perpetuity, a first inquiry must be whether it is public - whether it is for the benefit of the community or of an appreciably important class of the community. The inhabitants of a parish or town, or any particular class of such inhabitants, may, for instance, be the objects of such a gift, but private individuals, or a fluctuating body of private individuals, cannot.”
I suspect that our members would be 'a fluctuating body of private individuals'.