These constitution templates are designed to help not-for-profit organisations that are incorporated as a public company limited by guarantee (CLG) with ASIC and want to be registered as a charity with the ACNC. They are designed to help small, charitable, not-for-profit companies limited by guarantee with straight-forward membership to create a suitable governing document.
A charity's annual financial statements must be either General Purpose Financial Statements (GPFS) or Special Purpose Financial Statements (SPFS). The type of annual financial statement a charity must prepare is dependent on whether it is classed as a reporting entity.
Each charity has a governing document which sets out its charitable purposes, confirms that it operates on a not-for-profit basis, and details how its governing body makes decisions and consults any members. These templates are examples that charities can use.
Charities operating overseas must comply with ACNC External Conduct Standards. These are a set of standards that govern how a registered charity must manage its activities and resources outside Australia.
External Conduct Standard 4 focuses on the specific requirements for protecting vulnerable people – those who are those aged under 18, or other people who might not be able to take care of themselves or cannot protect themselves from harm or exploitation
Around six percent of charities registered with the ACNC have operations overseas. Often, due to the work these charities conduct overseas or the location they operate in, risk levels are elevated.
There are several factors the ACNC considers when determining risk levels, and several measures the ACNC may request from charities to demonstrate they have addressed these risks.
In this month’s Commissioner’s Column, Sue Woodward AM highlights why timely reporting is essential for maintaining a charity's reputation and trust in uncertain times.
While Basic Religious Charities are not required to meet the ACNC's Governance Standards, they still have various other governance and reporting obligations, including obligations outlined in the External Conduct Standards if they operate overseas.
As part of secrecy reforms for the ACNC's work, we are publishing further information about our regulatory activities within the sector. The ACNC has received Federal Government funding for this work.
The information we will publish through this work relates to our regulatory and compliance activities. And in the context of our registration activities, this information will be published in the form of ‘de-identified registration decision (DRD) summaries'.
Under certain circumstances, the ACNC can disclose information about charity investigations. This may include the fact that the ACNC is carrying out an investigation, and information relating to an investigation.
