Charitable vehicle registration and setup
A musician or founder starts with money they want to give away and no vehicle to give it through. We handle the registration itself: the application through the Charity Portal, the charitable purposes that qualify, and the board the Commissioner expects to see. You end up with a body that exists, is registered, and may lawfully receive and give money.
What registration does
Registration is a decision by the Commissioner of Charities that a body exists for purposes that are wholly charitable. Qualifying purposes include the relief of poverty, the advancement of education and religion, and other purposes beneficial to the community, which covers the advancement of the arts. Once registered, the vehicle enjoys automatic income tax exemption on its income. Registration decides whether the vehicle exists and what it may do. It is the first layer; IPC status, which decides whether donors can claim a deduction, is a separate second layer applied for later.
Before you register
The application runs through the Charity Portal, and the order matters. We define the charitable purposes and the board before registering, so the constitution reads clean from the start. The purposes you file are the purposes the vehicle is bound to, and the trustees named on day one are the ones the Commissioner deals with. We settle both before the application goes in, so the vehicle does not begin life with paperwork already out of date.