Evaluating Non-Profits - Regulatory and Financial Metrics

Interesting article on the regulatory and financial metrics underlying the evaluation of non-profit organisations/charities, at http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampbarrett/2014/12/10/how-to-evaluate-a-charity.

Forbes relies on several metrics to calculate the efficiency of a given charity using efficiency ratios, amongst them, charitable commitment, fundraising efficiency and donor dependency.

Well worth a read, for although the non-profit regulatory framework differs materially from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, some of the key metrics and concepts would be applicable across the board to any non-profit irrespective of location or core objective.

For a list of the largest US charities mentioned in the article, go to http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampbarrett/2014/12/10/the-largest-u-s-charities-for-2014.

Best Practice Guide on Managing Non Profit Organisations

The Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM) has issued a publication entitled “Guidelines on Best Management Practices for Non Profit Organizations (NPO)”.

The Guideline is available for free download at http://www.ssm.com.my/ms/node/23405

Topics covered include:

1. Risk of NPO's being misused
2. Risks NPO’s are exposed to
3. Abuse of NPO's - global perspectives
4. Best practices in managing NPOs for Directors/Trustees/Office Bearers
5. Understanding the responsibility of a Director/Trustee/Office Bearer (to ensure completeness of records, ensuring that the NPO has an adequate system of internal control and risk management, as well as compliance with specific legislation regulating NPO's
6. Information on money laundering and terrorism financing via NPO's

Tracking online/ATM donations to your non-profit organisation

If your non-profit organisation doesn’t have an account with Paypal or some other online payment platform, your donees can still make donations direct to the bank account of your organisation via online banking or, ATM transfer.

However, the process flow for the Secretariat in terms of managing direct monetary transfers would be a little more complex, as the details of the donation would not appear until your next bank statement is issued by the Bank. In addition to being issued only several weeks after the transaction, the bank statement would also not reveal the details of the done for the purposes of issuing a receipt.

A suggestion here would be to have your donees notify the secretariat via email that they have made an online transfer, together with the following details:

*Name:

*Date :

*Amount donated (in RM):

*Bank account no. :

*Contact details for issuance of receipt

If the transfer has been made via ATM, a scanned copy or a phone snapshot of the ATM slip could be attached to the email.

The Secretariat could then record the donation and corresponding details. 

Non-profit organisations receiving donations via Paypal

To all non-profits and charitable organisations out there – be careful when setting up a Paypal account to receive donations online.

It’s easy enough to set up the account, but you could soon find yourself running into difficulties.

If you claim that your organisation is a non-profit organisation, and thereby eligible for the special rate offered to non-profit organisations by Paypal, Paypal will immediately freeze your account and ask for “proof” of non-profit status or rather, “proof” that the organisation “is allowed” to collect donations.

This happened to us after several donors had already donated using the Paypal “Donate” button on our website.

What subsequently followed was a lengthy exchange between ourselves and various account managers, during which we sent them copies of supporting documentation ranging from our certificate of registration with the Registry of Societies to copies of our Annual Returns lodged with the Registry of Societies for the preceding financial year, which clearly indicated that donations are received by the organisation.

They refused to accept the documents we provided or the arguments that we put forward, and kept asking for proof of tax-exempt status (which we do not yet have, being a newly-registered society). 

In the end, we had to just give up and close the account. The donations in the account were refunded to the donors in full, but after a very long time.

So to be safe, unless your organisation already has tax-exempt status, use a different platform for online donations. 

GST and non-profit organisations

Worrying about GST and how it is likely to affect your organisation, seems to have become something of a national pastime these days!

Charitable organisations and non-profits are also concerned as to how they will be affected, if at all.

Jabatan Kastam Diraja Malaysia or the Malaysian Customs Department has put up a general guide at http://gst.customs.gov.my/en/rg/SiteAssets/general_guides/Revised/General%20Guide%20-revised%20as%20at%2027%20October%202013.pdf

Pg 77

Societies and Similar Organisations

254. Societies and similar organisations refer to any club-type organization registered under any written law.

255. The supply of goods or services by any society or similar organization shall

not be treated as a supply if:-

(a) the supply to its members is related to its aim and objectives and

available without payment other than a membership subscription and

the value of the supply is nominal; or (b) the supply to a donor or sponsor has no commercial value.

For further details, please refer to the GST Guide on Societies and Similar

Organizations (including Charitable Entities).

Charitable Entities

256. Charitable entities which are established exclusively for charitable purposes

and for the benefit of the community or an appreciably significant part of it. Charities

entities may be involved in business and non-business activities.

257. All charitable entities are required to be registered and charge GST on their

taxable supplies if:-

(a) they carry on business; and

(b) their supplies exceed the prescribed threshold.

These entities need to pay GST on their acquisition.

258. Selective charitable entities are given tax relief to acquire certain goods or

services for charitable purpose and relieved from charging tax (for GST registered

person) on supply of goods or services to its members in accordance with their

charitable objectives irrespective of whether supplied free, at nominal cost or at a

nominal charge as specified under Goods and Services Tax (Relief) Order 20XX.

Selective charitable entities refer to charitable entities for disabled and handicapped;

orphanage and children; and senior citizen health care and rehabilitation.

For further details, please refer to the GST Guide on Societies and Similar Organizations

(including Charitable Entities).

How to submit annual returns for a registered society

Every registered society in Malaysia must lodge its Annual Returns with the Registry of Societies

within 60 days from the date of the Annual General Meeting or, if an Annual General Meeting has not

been held, within 60 days from 1^st March of any given calendar year.

Generally, the Annual Returns comprise a financial report, updated details of the executive committee and other information pertaining to the activities of the registered society for the year.

For details as to how to lodge the Annual Returns on the Registry of Society’s eROSes portal, go to:

http://www.ros.gov.my/files/CARA_MENGHANTAR_PENYATA_TAHUNAN_Kemaskini_27_Mei.pdf

Opening a bank account for your registered society

Once you have received your certificate of registration from the ROS, you can open a bank account in the name of the registered society.

To do this, you’ll need the registration number of the society (It should look something like this : PPM-xxx-xx-xxxxxxxx); and   a resolution signed by the executive committee members.

It would be best to speak to a bank officer in whichever bank you wish to open the account. Each bank may have a different set of requirements and/or required documentation.

Once you have the documents with you, all the signatories will need to visit the selected branch of the Bank, to open the account and provide the specimen signatures to the Bank.

 Proper process flows and SOP’s should be set up to manage chops, chequebooks etc.

A sample resolution is set out below. Again, it would be best to ask the bank for an approved sample which you can follow. (The italic words appearing as "Notes" should not be included in the actual resolution.)

********************************************************************************

[NAME OF SOCIETY]

REGISTERED SOCIETY NO:  PPM-XXXXXXX

CIRCULAR RESOLUTION

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OPENING OF BANK ACCOUNT

RESOLVED:

THAT a current account be opened with the [name of branch] branch of [name of Bank] (“Bank”) in the name of [Name of Society] and that the said Bank be and is hereby empowered, whether the Society’s account is in credit or not, to honour all cheques, bills of exchange and promissory notes signed, drawn or made on behalf of the Society, provided they are signed in the following manner:

            AUTHORISED SIGNATORIES:

           

1.      xxxx  (President)

2.      xxxx (Secretary)

3.      xxxx  (Treasurer)

[Note: the identification of the office-bearers authorised to sign cheques/operate the bank account should be as per the provisions governing the handling of finances, in the Constitution]

MODE OF OPERATION:

To be signed by [all three of] the authorized signatories. [Note: the instruction should correspond with the provisions governing the handling of finances, in the Constitution]

AND the Bank shall act on any instructions and accept any receipts or other documents related to the said account, transactions or affairs of the Society, if so signed on behalf of the Society.

THAT a copy of this resolution together with the specimen signatures of the authorized signatories be furnished to the Bank and that this resolution shall remain in force until notice in writing to the contrary is given to the Bank.

Dated this xx day of xxx 201xx

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS

------------------------------------                                        --------------------------------------           

President                                                                     Vice President

------------------------------------                                       --------------------------------------

Secretary                                                                     Treasurer

------------------------------------                                       --------------------------------------

Exco Member                                                              Exco Member

Managing the secretariat - Membership

So, you’ve registered your society and would like to start getting members to start joining.

A good place to start, is the Constitution of your society. How many categories of members are allowed? Is the society allowed to have Life Members and Ordinary Members? Are there restrictions on who can be a member (for example, prohibitions on foreign memberships, age limits, etc?)

What are the subscription fees stated in the Constitution, for different categories of members? What are the provisions on renewal of membership?

The Constitution will usually have provisions similar to the sample below:

[SAMPLE]

3.             Membership

(1)                Membership shall be opened to Malaysian citizens, residents and permanent residents of Malaysia aged eighteen (18) years and above.

(2)                Every application for membership shall be proposed and seconded by two existing members and shall be forwarded to the Secretary who shall, at the first convenient opportunity, submit it to the Committee for approval. The Committee may, at its discretion, reject any application without assigning any reason thereof.

(3)                Every applicant  whose application has been approved as aforesaid shall, upon payment of the prescribed entrance fee and first monthly subscription, be admitted as a member of the Society and shall be entitled to all the privileges of membership.

Click on this link to view sample Constitutions provided by the ROS for registered societies with branches and without.  http://www.ros.gov.my/index.php/my/perkhidmatan

From the Secretariat’s perspective, you’ll need a system by which to keep track of new members. It’s best to create a spreadsheet or a word document to serve as a Register of Members, which you could update on a regular basis or, whenever a new member joins your society.

From an accounting perspective, proper records should be kept showing how much the member paid in RM as a subscription fee, as well as date of payment and date the amount was banked in to the society’s account.  A receipt should be issued to the member upon receipt of the subscription payment. 

Information that you would normally require would be the member’s name, IC No., contact details, subscription fee and date of annual renewal of membership, if applicable.

A Register of Members might just be a simple dataset of columns and rows, like the sample below:

Membership No	Name	NRIC No (if applicable)	Residential address	Contact details	Subscription fee (RM) paid on [date]	Renewal notice to be sent?

How to register your society/association in Malaysia

In earlier posts, we looked at an overview of the registration process, and talked about the first step of getting your executive committee together and working out who is going to be responsible for which areas, in terms of managing the society and the secretariat.

In today's post, we're going to look at registering your society on the eROSes portal at www.ros.gov.my.

Basically, the Registrar of Societies no longer accepts submissions of physical documents over-the-counter. The entire system has migrated online to a portal called eROSes. Under the new system, all documentation must be submitted electronically.

Step 1 is the creation of a user login and profile. Note that the person creating the profile, must be the Secretary of the society. It cannot be the President, Treasurer or any other office-bearer. The Secretary is the sole point of contact as far as the eROSes portal is concerned. Therefore, it would be a good idea to ensure that the Secretary has a very good command of Bahasa Malaysia as most of the content on the eROSes portal is in Bahasa Malaysia.

Once login details, passwords etc have been created, the user must key in various details into the text boxes provided on the portal, which appear when the various headings are clicked on. To populate the text boxes, it would be a good idea to have all the data already keyed into separate word documents, so that you can just copy and paste the info into the text boxes instead of typing everything from scratch. (Besides saving time, this could help you avoid loss of data if you are accidentally logged out of the system, or the system hangs and your data is lost).

Two final points – firstly, you can save data already keyed in and exit any number of times while you are working on completing the details. There is no need to complete everything at one go. You can actually take your time to compile all the information, and only click “submit” once everything is ready. Secondly, there is no option to attach word or excel documents. Data has to be copied and pasted, or keyed into the text boxes manually. So even for the constitution, you are required to key in the information paragraph by paragraph.

For a better understanding of the process and content that needs to be compiled, have a look at the very comprehensive and detailed eROSES Manual published by the Registry of Societies, entitled “Panduan Pengguna Sistem Elektronik Jabatan Pendaftaran Pertubuhan Malaysia”. Download it at http://www.ros.gov.my/files/supp_docs/Panduan_pengguna_eroses%20upload.pdf

There is also an online tutorial which ROS has uploaded, guiding you through the process step-by-step process. Go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdNbABd7830.

If it all looks too confusing, just save your softcopies on a thumbdrive and head to the ROS branch office in your home state. Check out http://www.ros.gov.my/index.php/my/jppm-negeri for a list of state branches.

In Wilayah Persekutuan, the office is located in the Jln. Duta government complex. There are several PC’s available for members of the public, and the officers at the counter are be happy to assist you set up a user profile or help you solve technical issues on the portal. Or you could bring along your own laptop and a broadband connection and get one of the officers to help you with your question/problem.

Wilayah Persekutuan
Jabatan Pendaftaran Pertubuhan Malaysia Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur,
Aras G, Kompleks Kementerian Dalam Negeri,
Jalan Sri Hartamas Off Jalan Duta,
50480 Kuala Lumpur.
Telefon : 03 - 62012092 / 03 - 62012093 / 03 - 62012094 /03-62012095 / 03-62012096
No. Faks : 03 – 62012107

For more general info, check out the ROS website at http://www.ros.gov.my/index.php/en/

Getting Your Executive Committee Together

First of all, before you even start the process of registration with the Registry of Societies (ROS),  you might want to gather founding members together and meet somewhere over a drink or a meal for a chat.

It’s important to understand that there is actually a lot of work involved in setting up the framework, implementing admistrative processes and doing the kind of monitoring that is needed for regulatory compliance purposes. In order to register, a lot of paperwork needs to be completed and submitted online. Once registered, a registered society must lodge its Annual Returns (comprising its accounts, information on executive committee members, and other info) at least once a year. Running a secretariat entails keeping track of funds in the form of donations and subscriptions, grants and sponsorships – and the associated paperwork such as issuing invoices, cheques, receipts and updating the register of members.

With this in mind, it’s best to establish upfront, who amongst your group of founding members is best suited to tasks such as liaising with the Registry of Societies (ROS) and other regulatory authorities, sorting out membership-related matters, doing the accounts and keeping financial records, signing cheques and operating  bank accounts, as well as keeping track of inventory, paying bills, and handling other administrative matters. 

As most new groups will have little or no funding when they start out, they are not likely to have a fully-staffed secretariat, and so will have to rely on volunteers to run pretty much everything. It’s best therefore, to have an idea of who these volunteers are going to be, before moving forward with other plans.

This also ties in to the next step in the process flow, which is to make sure you have enough people in your group to form an executive committee in line with the ROS requirements. Basically, you must have least 7 members.

Why? Because the online portal of the Registrar of Societies (www.eroses.gov.my), will require you to key in at least seven names in order to complete the section under “Ahli Jawatankuasa” or Executive Committee. If you key in 6 or fewer names, you won’t be able to move to the next section of the portal. (According to a ROS officer, the requirement to have 7 executive committee members is one of the guidelines that they follow in assessing applications).

So, to link back to the earlier point as to who will be doing what, it’s a good idea to sit down with your group of founding members and map out the collective expertise. Most of you are likely to be working full time in other jobs. Talk to your group about what areas they’d like to be involved in and try to see if those with expertise in the area of law, accounting & finance might be willing to serve as Secretary and Treasurer respectively. Members with past NGO experience might be willing to help with other secretariat and regulatory matters. Plus, anyone working in a bank might be able to be one of the signatories to cheques and help to open bank accounts.

Also, it might be helpful to search amongst your family & friend networks to find people who can help contribute time and expertise to these particular areas.  

Forming a registered society in Malaysia

So, you've decided to start a non-profit organisation to further a cause that you’re truly passionate about. 

You’ve got a group of people who want to be a part of it. Brainstorming sessions have commenced. A vision and mission statement has been agreed on. Everyone is really excited and can’t wait to get started!!

Then, someone asks “So, er..how we do this from a regulatory perspective?” And this question might be met with “err…” or “ummm…”, dead silence, or frenetic googling for the answer. 

Look no further, hopefully, this blog post will help shed some light on what to do next.

First and foremost, why bother to set up a formal structure? Why can’t non-profit organisations just regulate themselves?

The main issue is actually, handling of funds. A non-profit organisation needs to raise funds in order to carry out its activities. And in order to raise funds, it needs a bank account. It also needs to be a legitimate organisation, if the intention is to collect funds from members of the public. And eventually, you might want tax-exempt status for your organisation, so that you can raise funds from corporate sponsors. To do this, your organisation needs to be lawfully registered.

OK, so a charitable or non-profit organisation in Malaysia has a choice of vehicles it could set up in order to register itself. While there are a variety of these depending on the type of organisation, the legal instrument that creates it, as well as existing statutes, let’s look at the most common vehicle, a registered society, first.

The first to do would be to visit the website of the Jabatan Pendaftaran Pertubuhan Malaysia, or Registar of Societies (also known as ROS). Go to http://www.ros.gov.my.

On the landing page of this website, go to the section marked “Perkhidmatan” and click on “Panduan Pengurusan Pertubuhan”. (For those who are not fluent in Bahasa Malaysia, you can translate the entire page by clicking on the icon on the top right hand corner of the page).

Once you’ve clicked on the link “Panduan Pengurusan Pertubuhan”, you’ll get to a menu which allows you to view a variety of documents.

We’ve pasted the table and a translation below:

-Contoh Undang-undang Tubuh Pertubuhan (Sample Constitution)

-Kelulusan Menubuhkan Cawangan Pertubuhan (Approval to set up branches)

-Pendaftaran Bendera, Lambang, Lencana Atau Lain-Lain Insignia Pertubuhan (Registration of flag/emblems/badge or other insignia)

-Pendaftaran Pegawai Awam (Registration of Public Official)

-Pendaftaran Pertubuhan Induk (Registration of Parent Organisation)

-Pengesahan Pegawai Harta (Verification of officer in charge of assets)

-Penghantaran Penyata Tahunan (Lodgement of Annual Returns)

-Permintaan Supaya Dibatalkan Perakuan Pendaftaran (Request to Revoke Registration)

-Permohonan Untuk Membuat Carian/Mendapatkan Dokumen (Searches, Access to Documents)

-Pindaan Undang-Undang Tubuh (Constitutional Amendments)

If you click on any of these links on the webpage, you’ll be able to access the actual rules and regulations, and download the relevant PDF documents.

You’ll need to have all this information and draft documentation ready before going to the ROS online portal in order to actually register the society. The portal is accessible at http://www.eroses.gov.my/ros. Once a profile is created and the administrator of the account (who must be the Secretary of the organisation)logs in, he/she will see a list of drop down menus full of empty fields and text  boxes which must be completed and, once complete, submitted to ROS via the eROSes portal. Then, you’ll need to wait for ROS to vet all the documents, and if everything is in order, a certification of registration will be issued with a number for your registered society.

The above is a macro overview of the end-to-end process. In the next post, we’ll provide a step-by-step practical guide to registration.