FAL Lawyers Melbourne & Canberra

In 2016, our charities team were the first in Australia to successfully get tax deductible status for a charity that wanted to send money overseas to people in need. The background is that a friend approached us with his dream – to build schools for kids in Kenya and Cambodia. With some changes in the law happening in the couple of years before, we thought it was a prime time to test the waters and see if charities set up exclusively for benefitting needy people overseas would be accepted.  Happily, our efforts were successful and since then many schools have been able to be built, assisting hundreds of children every day.

At times charities have urgent needs to obtain charity status as they have important projects with looming deadlines.  We have worked closely with the ACNC and the ATO and, when needed, have been able to openly communicate with them about urgent needs of clients.  In this case we filed the application on a Thursday and came to work on a Monday morning with the charity approved and ready to go.  This was enormously beneficial for our client who needed the funds to keep an important building within their community.

We have had a successful track record of registering charities with the ACNC for individuals that aim to help specific and niche communities within Australia. Our experience with working with niche communities ranges far and wide, from setting up charities that aim to assist cultural communities, religious communities and professional communities (e.g. maritime community).  We have been able to set up all of these charities to empower them with freedom and flexibility to pursue their vision and charitable objectives.

With the recent COVID-19 outbreak, we think it’s great that new businesses are continuing to be created, particularly those in the field of sports and fitness. FAL Lawyers recently assisted former Australian netball player and current Collingwood AFL Women’s Footballer, Sharni Layton, to establish the Sharni Layton Sports Academy. We partnered with Sharni to prepare contractor agreements and terms and conditions for student-athletes. We also filed trade mark applications for the Sports Academy. The Sharni Layton Sports Academy will offer a high-performance program for youth who complete in netball and football. The Sports Academy will provide student-athletes with quality coaching, training and mentoring by passionate and professional coaches, dietitians, psychologists and physios. The programs will provide student-athletes with the necessary support to maximise their sporting potential and personal development. The Sharni Layton Academy will be launching early 2021.

Earlier this year FAL assisted a large scientific research collaboration obtain charity status to facilitate the pursuit of its goals and charitable objects. The collaboration brings together industry, researchers, government bodies and the community to leverage and build upon Australian capability and expertise, with the end goal of creating the tools, technologies and skills to make Australia a player on the world stage in the charity’s sector. In this case, the application went straight through and was accepted by the ACNC without any questions, changes or requests for further information.

We acted for a medical charity that conducts clinical and medical research activities. The charity, due to the reputation of its board members, had substantial promised funding prior to its registration with the ACNC from a large-scale sophisticated donor, and we assisted not only with the establishment of the charity but also with forming the structure for receiving those donations and setting up the its operational framework (e.g. leasing out buildings at hospitals, obtaining high-tech and expensive medical equipment, establishing employment arrangements, etc).

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