There are 86,000 charities in Canada. They all need to have exclusively legal objects or purposes. This one-hour course will discuss the importance of objects for a registered charity and will be particularly relevant in three circumstances:
1. When you are a non-profit and applying to become a registered charity.
2. When running a registered charity – awareness of your legal objects and that your charitable activities must be within your objects.
3. When making changes to your objects as an existing registered charity and obtaining CRA approval (many groups in Canada will be making corporate changes and changing objects may be part of that change.)
The topics covered in the course include:
- Charity Law Basics
- Legal Objects/Purposes
- Four Heads of Charity
(relief of poverty, advancement of education, advancement of religion, other purposes beneficial to the community that the law considers charitable) - Drafting Purposes
- Public Benefit
- CRA Guidances and Policies About Applying for Registered Charity Status
- Objects and Charity Applications
- Changes to Objects When Already Registered Charity
- Statement of Activities
This course is geared towards the complexity of registered charities and their objects. It does not deal with the objects of non-profits that are not registered charities.
This course may be of interest to:
- Staff and volunteers of registered charities as the charitable objects that an organization has can constrain the charitable activities that the organization conducts as well as the scope of fundraising, business activities and political activities (PPDDAs) as these generally will be related in one way or another to the objects;
- Board members of a charity who are responsible for oversight of the work of a charity, and charities cannot conduct charitable activities outside of their objects;
- Professional advisors who assist charities may find this course helpful in understanding how legal objects affect their clients.