Set up a legal entity for your PAF, charity or NFP

Get the entity right so your cause can outlive the person who started it.

Which entity should hold your charitable work? A charitable trust, an incorporated association and a company limited by guarantee are all used for the same causes, and they hand control, liability and reporting to different people. We choose the one that matches what your organisation will actually do, then draft the constitution or deed and take the registrations through. You end up with an entity that fits the work, rather than work that bends to fit the entity.

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An entity fit for the cause

Your trust, association or company is chosen against what the organisation will actually do, not against what is quickest to register.

DGR secured where it is available

The endorsement requirements are built into the constitution from the start, so the drafting doesn't have to be undone later.

Governance your board can follow

The people running it after you get a constitution that tells them how, in language they can act on.

What type of legal entity do you need for your charity or NFP?

Charities and not-for-profits in Australia are usually held in one of four things: a charitable trust, an incorporated association, a company limited by guarantee, or an unincorporated association. A trust is governed by trustees under a deed, which keeps control tight. A company limited by guarantee has directors, answers to company law, and is the usual choice for an organisation operating across state borders. An incorporated association is cheaper to run but is registered under state law, which matters if you expand. The choice sets who is liable, who can be removed, and how much reporting the organisation carries for the rest of its life.

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What is the difference between a charitable trust and a company limited by guarantee?

A charitable trust is created by a deed and run by trustees, which keeps control tight and the reporting relatively light. A company limited by guarantee has directors, answers to company law, and is registered nationally, which suits an organisation operating in more than one state. The trade-off is control and simplicity against reach and formality.

What is DGR status and why does it matter?

Deductible Gift Recipient endorsement lets your donors claim a deduction for what they give you. In practice it is often the difference between someone being interested in your cause and someone writing a cheque, and it is a condition of many government grants. Not every charitable structure is eligible, which is why it is worth settling before the constitution is drafted.

How long does it take to set up a registered charity?

The entity itself can usually be established within a few weeks. Charity registration takes longer and can run to several months, depending on the application and the regulator’s workload. We will tell you what is realistic at the start and manage the process from there.

Can a social enterprise be structured as a charity?

Sometimes. A social enterprise can be a charity if its purposes meet the legal definition of charitable purpose, which turns on what the organisation is for rather than what it sells. Trading activity doesn’t by itself rule it out. We will look at your model and tell you whether it qualifies before you commit to a structure.

Not sure which type of entity is right for your charitable goals?

Before we go through the options, tell us what the organisation will do and how big you expect it to get. Those two answers narrow the choice faster than anything else.

The entity is what your cause has to live inside

You know what you want the organisation to do. What you don’t know is whether it should be a trust, an incorporated association or a company limited by guarantee, and the people advising you each have a favourite. Underneath that question is a harder one: if you step back in ten years, does the thing you set up still work without you?

We will advise which entity type suits what the organisation will actually do, and explain what each one costs you.
We will draft the constitution or trust deed, including the clauses your endorsement application will need.
We will set up the board or trustee arrangements and the governance documents that go with them.
We will lodge the charity registration, the DGR endorsement application and the ATO registrations.

You have the cause. Now it needs somewhere to live

You have been funding or running something informally and it has outgrown that. Money is coming in from more than one source, people are volunteering their time, and someone has pointed out that you are personally exposed if anything goes wrong. You want it incorporated properly, with a board and a constitution, but the options all sound broadly the same when they are described to you. The part that worries you is choosing wrong and finding out years later, when changing it means moving charitable assets.

What's included in your charity entity setup service

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Advice on the entity type that suits your purpose, scale and governance preferences.
Drafting of the constitution or trust deed, written with DGR endorsement in mind.
Board or trustee arrangements, including appointment and removal provisions.
Charity registration application, prepared and lodged.
DGR endorsement and the ATO registrations your entity is eligible for.

Good intentions do not survive a badly drafted constitution

The failure here is quiet. A constitution drafted from a template doesn’t contain the clauses the ATO looks for on endorsement, so the DGR application is refused and the organisation starts life without the one feature donors care about. An incorporated association set up for a local cause becomes a national one, and has to re-register in a form it was never built for. Directors who were told the entity protected them find that it doesn’t, because the governance obligations were never written down or followed. Each of these is fixable, and each gets more expensive the longer the organisation has been operating under the wrong document.

How we set the entity up so it does not need redoing

We work backwards from what the organisation is for. The purpose clause is drafted first, because it is the thing the regulator reads and the thing that limits what the organisation can do later. The entity type then follows from the scale and the governance you want, and the constitution is written with the endorsement application already in mind, so the drafting doesn’t have to be unpicked to get DGR through. We lodge the registrations and deal with the queries that come back. You finish with an organisation that is properly constituted, endorsed where it is eligible, and able to keep running when the people who started it move on.

Three steps from idea to incorporated

Purpose first, then the entity, then the endorsements.

Define the purpose

We write the charitable purpose clause first, because it decides what the organisation can do and what the regulator will accept.

Choose the vehicle

We match the entity type to your scale, your governance preferences and where you expect to operate.

Constitute and register

We draft the constitution or deed, set up the board, and lodge the charity and ATO applications.

Set up by people who know what the regulator reads first

The hardest part of this isn’t the law. It is committing to a structure for something you care about before you know how big it will get, on advice you are not yet equipped to test.

We have drafted these constitutions and taken the registrations through, and what separates a smooth application from a refused one is almost always the purpose clause and whether the document was written with endorsement in mind. We have a Chartered Tax Advisor with The Tax Institute, and we are ISO 9001 accredited, so the steps on your file and what you are told at each one are defined rather than improvised.

Our great lawyer guarantee

Six principles we hold to, whatever you bring us and however long it takes.

Take the time

We listen carefully to understand what you want to achieve, then step you through the advice and the documents.

Share our knowledge

We pass on as much as we can, so you can make your own informed decisions.

Stick to our knitting

We only do what we are good at, so you never pay for our learning.

Work as one team

Someone is always available to answer your question or point you the right way.

Fair pricing

A fixed or capped quote for advice and documents, so you do not carry the price risk.

It is your show

We are in it for a front row seat to witness your success, not for our egos.

Ready to get your entity properly constituted?

An organisation set up on the right document doesn’t need rebuilding when it grows. Tell us what your cause is and how you expect it to run, and we will put the entity around it.

Speak to a lawyer 1300 654 590