Governance and Setting up a New group
If you are thinking about setting up a new voluntary or community group, or are considering establishing a social enterprise, we can provide a range of information, advice and support to help you.
Depending on what your needs are, we will assign one of our community development officers to work with you and to help guide you through the process involved in starting a new group, decide on the best legal structure, registering with the relevant regulatory bodies, setting up a bank account, sourcing funding and much more. For more information go to the information sheets on Getting Started and Trustees and Governance or the Social Enterprise coalition website.
Different types of Legal Structures
There are several legal structures for a voluntary organisation. There are unincorporated and incorporated structures. All organisations no matter what size need a set of governing rules that set out what they want to achieve along with procedures and rules for running the organisation. These rules are set out in the organisations governing document, the form of this document depends on the structure of the organisation –this is often referred to as the constitution. The structures of unincorporated organisations are an unincorporated association with a constitution or set of rules, or a charitable trust with a Trust deed, deed of trust or declaration of trust.
Incorporated structures are a Company Limited by Guarantee, a Community Interest Company both these structures have a Memorandum and Articles of Association, an Industrial and Provident Society with a set of rules.
Organisations which are unincorporated are typically small community groups with little liabilities where incorporated organisations tend to be larger organisations which employ staff or own/lease buildings or land.
For more information access our information sheet on choosing Legal Structures.
