As your Incredible team and activities develop it’s important to formalise how you do things in writing with a governing document.
This may feel a little daunting, but your local voluntary sector support organisation will be able to provide advice and chat through the options tailored to your group’s situation – to find your local support organisation click on the link for the country you’re in: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
You will first need to consider what sort of organisation you want to be and the Resource Centre has a good guide on different types of not-for-profit organisations. They also have useful information about writing a constitution for a small community group. Voluntary Action Leicestershire have a great guide on how to set up a community group, with lots of links to other resources to support you on those early steps. And if you want to set up a charity, the Small Charities Coalition has developed a great step by step resource with advice and guidance to take you through the process.
If you decide your group will have charitable aims then the government website has useful model governing documents for England and Wales, and links for similar resources in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Have a look at the different sites and chat through what would work best with the members of your group.
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Hopefully, when you were at the ‘Build your team’ stage of the 10 Steps to being Incredible, you discussed ideas about what inspires you to be Incredible and what you’d like to achieve in your community – this will become your group’s aims or purpose. You will also need to include how you’ll organise the group.
there are standard things you need to consider like:
- Powers of the group
- Membership
- Management committee and roles, like Chair, Secretary and Treasurer
- Frequency of meetings
- Financial arrangements and reporting
- Organisation of Annual and Special General Meetings
- Dissolution – what will happen when the group closes
The Voluntary Action Leicestershire guide on how to set up a community group has some great information and example governing documents, or contact your local support organisation using the country links above. Once you’ve agreed the governing document it really will make the running of the group easier – it just takes a bit of effort to get everything agreed and signed.
