If you see a worthy cause that you want to do something about, you may be interested in starting a charity for it. A charitable organization may be able to provide help to people in your community or in some other part of the world. So it is important to get things right when starting one so that your good intentions do not go to waste.
- What do you want to be? – Do you want to start a charitable trust or a charitable organization? Charitable trusts primarily allocate money. This means that all you do, basically, is collect money and then evaluate proposals from deserving parties and eventually funding them. Charitable organizations engage in charitable activities as well as providing community services. If you want to find detailed information on the two entities, you can contact Inland Revenue or even visit their website.
- What is your mission? – A mission statement simply needs to state what your charity is focusing on and how it aims to help the community. It need not be several pages long and ideally should be expressed in a few sentences.
- Who are you? – This is a question that is answered by a document known as the Articles of Incorporation. This document will contain information such as the charity’s purpose, how long it will be in operation for, what type of charity it is and the structure of the charity. Getting hold of this document is easy as an online version is available in most states.