A number of documents are required to register as such an entity with the Department of Social Development. The formulation of a constitution is one such requirement.
SAOSS wants to register as an NPO so that it has recognition within South Africa to represent the interests of open source software/hardware. One of the requirements is to have an approved constition. Other requirements as as per https://www.gov.za/services/register-nonprofit-organisation.
If yours is a non-profit organisation and is not part of government, you can apply for registration. You can submit your non-profit organisation (NPO) application at your nearest provincial social development office.
NPOs include trusts, companies or other associations of persons established for a public purpose.
To register, you must be one of the following:
- non-governmental organisation (NGO) - what we're looking at
- community-based organisation (CBO)
- faith-based organisation (FBO).
Submit the completed NPO application form at your nearest provincial social development office together with two copies of the organisation’s founding documents:
- Trust – Deeds of trust and letter of authorisation from the courts (not applicable)
- Section 21 – Certificate of incorporation and memorandum and articles of association (not applicable)
- Voluntary Association – It requires an agreement in the form of written or unwritten constitution between three or more people - Constitution (likley us)
- The founding documents of the NPO must meet the provisions of Section 12 (A-O) of the Nonprofit Organisations Act, 1997 (Act 71 of 1997). If you fail to do that, your application will be rejected.
Section 12 on page 8 of the Act spells out what the Constitution should cover - these need to be ticked off in our draft Constitution.
You can submit your application (no cost to register) at your nearest provincial Social Development office, post it to The Directorate, Non-profit organisations, Department of Social Development, Private Bag X901, Pretoria, 0001 or deliver it by hand to the Department of Social Development, 134 Pretorius Street, HSRC Building, Pretoria (or it seems at online link below). It may take approximately two months to process the entire registration. Once your application has been received, the department will send you an acknowledgement letter. A registration certificate will be issued if your application meets the requirements of the Nonprofit Organisations Act, 1997 (see document in repo).
Online registration at http://www.npo.gov.za/PublicNpo/WebApplicationCase/Register for NPO, and general website for information about NPO's and changes to documentation at http://www.npo.gov.za/.
Once the organisation is registered, it is obligated in terms of Section 18 and 19 to submit within 9 months after the end of its financial year, annual reports including any changes to the organisations constitution, physical address and office bearers. Required Reports are:
- Narrative Report
- Financial Statement
- and Accounting Officers report OR Narrative Report, 12 months Bank Statement and Affidavit With our online service submitting your annual compliance reports is a simple matter of uploading the individual required reports for the appropriate year.
The draft constitution is inside a file called 'constitution.md' in this repo. Anyone is free to make suggestions, edits, etc. Other files will be created when identified from the requirements above if needed. We'd also need to annually draft the annual report here with your inputs.