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Capability note
Newly Established Organisations and Their Founders
Getting the institutional decisions right the first time
Founding an organisation involves a short sequence of structural decisions — legal form, governing body, founding documents, internal rules, financial arrangements — taken at the point when the founders know least about how the organisation will actually operate. Each of them is cheap to decide and expensive to revisit.
Most of the institutional problems we are later asked to repair originate in this period. This note sets out what we provide to founders, and what a client receives.
Capability note
Newly Established Organisations and Their Founders
Problems we are asked to address
01
Legal form chosen by default
The form was selected because it was familiar, or because another organisation used it, rather than because it fits the intended activity, funding model and governance. Changing it later means re-founding.
02
Founding documents copied from a template
Statutes taken from a model that does not match the organisation. They work until the first dispute, the first funder review, or the first decision someone contests — at which point they are found to say something the founders did not intend.
03
A governing body assembled from availability
The board is composed of people who agreed to join rather than people whose function is defined. Nobody is clear what the board decides, what management decides, and what requires the members.
04
Registration treated as completion
The organisation exists legally and has nothing else: no internal rules, no financial procedures, no record-keeping, no decision-recording. The first external review exposes this.
05
Founders without a defined role
The founders’ authority is assumed rather than stated. The question of what happens when a founder steps back, disagrees, or is replaced has no answer in the documents.
06
Approaching funders or partners too early
The organisation seeks support before it can demonstrate that it can receive, manage and account for it. A refusal at this stage is difficult to reverse with the same funder.
What we provide
Legal form analysis
Comparison of the available forms against the intended activity, funding model, governance and liability exposure, with the implications of each set out for decision. Formal legal validation is carried out by a qualified legal professional, which we recommend and can coordinate.
Founding documents
Drafting support for statutes and founding documents so that they reflect the intended governance rather than a template, prepared for legal validation before filing.
Governing body design
Composition, mandate, decision rights, meeting and quorum arrangements, separation between governance and management, and the role of founders within the structure.
Internal rules and procedures
Internal rules, delegation of authority, decision-recording, conflict-of-interest arrangements, and the administrative and financial procedures required from the first year.
Institutional readiness
Review of whether the organisation can demonstrate the capacity funders and partners will ask it to demonstrate, and what is required to close the gap.
First-year governance plan
The sequence of meetings, approvals, filings and records required in the first year, with responsibilities assigned.
What a client receives
A comparison of legal forms with implications and a recommendation
draft statutes and founding documents prepared for legal validation
internal rules
governing body composition, mandate and terms of reference
a delegation of authority matrix
core administrative and financial procedures
an institutional readiness review
a first-year governance calendar
This is delivered as a defined package with a fixed scope, not as an open-ended engagement. Founders at this stage need a finite piece of work with a clear end.
How we work
We advise on institutional design. We are not a law firm and we do not provide legal representation or certify the legal conformity of documents. Where formal legal validation is required — and for founding documents it generally is — it is carried out by a qualified legal professional. We prepare documents to a standard that makes that validation straightforward, and we coordinate with the professional appointed.
We work with the structures as they are defined in the applicable law and in the organisation’s own documents, rather than applying a generic governance model. For organisations established under French law, that means working with assemblée générale, conseil d’administration, bureau and règlement intérieur as they are actually constituted.
We do not solicit funds on a client’s behalf and we accept no remuneration conditional on funding being secured. Support on funding strategy and proposal development is advisory work and is paid as such.
How to begin
An initial confidential discussion covering what the organisation is intended to do, who will be involved, how it is expected to be funded, and where it will operate. These four answers determine most of the structural decisions. There is no cost and no obligation attached to it.
If there is a basis to proceed, we set out a written mandate with scope, deliverables, timeline and fee. No work begins before it is agreed.
