About the organisation
An organisation applied to the ACNC for charity registration.
In its governing document, the organisation stated that it sought to create cultural events, community sports events, special events for different age groups, and a multicultural festival.
About the application
The organisation applied to the ACNC for registration with the charity subtype of ‘advancing culture’; one of 12 charitable purposes set out in the Charities Act 2013 (Cth).
Advancing culture increases the public appreciation of arts, music or literature, national identity and heritage and includes:
- promoting and fostering culture
- promoting participation in the arts, including literature, music, the performing arts and visual arts
- promoting culture and customs of language and ethnic groups (other than where the purpose is social in nature).
Note: This wording is taken from the Explanatory Memorandum to the Charities Bill 2013 (Cth) which also includes other examples of advancing culture.
About the registration process
The organisation’s governing document contained clauses requiring it to operate on a not-for-profit basis, and to provide surplus assets to a charity upon winding up. Its governing document and submissions also demonstrated compliance with the ACNC Governance Standards.
One aspect of the application raised a potential concern.
The organisation’s governing document included an object of creating community sports events. This was a concern because the purpose of promoting sport is not a recognised charitable purpose.
However, where sporting activities are carried out to further a charitable purpose, or a purpose of promoting sport is incidental or ancillary to, and in furtherance or in aid of a charitable purpose, this does not prevent charity registration.
To be registered as a charity, an organisation must have a charitable purpose. These are the 12 charitable purposes set out in the Charities Act 2013 (Cth).
An organisation may have more than one charitable purpose – and many activities – so long as the activities are undertaken in furtherance of purposes and those purposes are charitable (or ‘incidental or ancillary to, and in furtherance or in aid of’ charitable purposes).
A key task for the ACNC is to determine an organisation’s purposes. A note in the Charities Act 2013 (Cth) states that regard must be had to the entity’s governing rules, its activities and any other relevant matter.
Under the law, the ACNC uses a holistic approach to determine a charity’s purposes. This means that we do not consider an object or activity in isolation, but consider all the relevant circumstances.
The ACNC needed more information from the organisation to determine whether its object of engaging in community sport events amounted to an independent non-charitable purpose of promoting sport.
The ACNC accepts that many charitable organisations undertake sporting activities. The ACNC may contact applicants to understand why they conduct these activities and anything else that could be relevant to determining the organisation’s purposes.
We contacted this organisation to understand more about what it does and why. We asked how it pursued its object of creating sports events in practice. The aim of the ACNC’s contact with the organisation was to determine holistically what its purposes were.
The organisation explained that it would participate in, and raise awareness of, the fundraising appeals of other charities that ran sporting activities to raise funds. The other charities were in the health sector, and raised funds for hospitals and medical research.
From this, it was clear from a holistic view that the organisation did not have an independent non-charitable purpose of promoting sport. This was because it would participate in these sports events to raise funds for charity, rather than just to promote sport.
Therefore, the ACNC was able to determine that the organisation was a charity.
Outcome
After considering the organisation’s governing document and activities, the ACNC was satisfied that all of the organisation’s purposes were charitable.
The ACNC then registered the organisation as a charity.