Beyond the values it guards and defends for our common interest, the nonprofit sector is known for its extreme diversity:

 of legal statuses: associations and foundations, unions and professional organizations, mutual benefit societies, provident societies, retirement funds.

 of sectors of activity: humanitarianism and charity, society and solidarity, health, social protection, art and culture, heritage and environment, education and research, sports and leisure, tourism, religion, insertion and training, etc.

 of public and private modes of financing.

The diversity and size of the nonprofit sector explain its multiplicity of arrangements, each depending on specific circumstances, with respect to law, fiscality and society.

Moreover, the growing development and professionalization of the sector, which is henceforth an indispensable social and economic actor, is accompanied by a strengthening of its rules of governance and transparency (at least where the largest nonprofits are concerned), often inspired by those of the “commercial sector.”

Our Patronage, Foundations and Assocations department offers solutions to current and new problems encountered by nonprofit directors, whether in the juridical, fiscal or social area.

To do so, our department relies heavily on a team of lawyers dedicated to the nonprofit sector. Moreover, the different competencies in business law within our firm (social law, intellectual and industrial property law, public law…) are at the disposal of association leaders according to their needs.

The organization of our Patronage, Foundations and Associations department allows for carrying out numerous missions, including the following :

• Aid in defining the association plan and determining the regulation related to the activities that will be carried out (as with activities for profit) or to the resources envisioned (patronage, sponsorship, subsidies, gifts and inheritances…);
• Aid in creating and composing tailored internal statutes and regulations and in carrying out the legal formalities involved in constituting associations, foundations, professional unions, mutual benefit societies, etc.;
• Counsel in choosing the mode of governance of the nonprofit; · Management of responsibilities and optimization of the organization’s human resources: implementation of power-sharing and mandate-sharing among charitable directors and salaried executives, reliance on association volunteers, determination of modes of participation of volunteers, elaboration of an ethical and legal framework for the charity, modes of compensation of leaders in conformity with the fiscal arrangements in force;
• Aid in structuring the daily management of the organization: holding and review of the legal secretariat and the institution’s books, accomplishment of legal formalities, fiscal and social declarations, legal intelligence, etc.;
• Conduct of diagnoses evaluating legal, fiscal and social risks and the implementation of recommendations;
• Consulting on matters of financial diversification: nonprofits’ eligibility and opportunities for relying on individuals’ and companies’ patronage, defense and representation of the organization’s interests before the fiscal administration within the framework of procedures of fiscal rescript (nonprofit or patronage), reliance on public generosity and implementation of fundraising;
• Composition of contracts in all areas and in particular in the area of strategic partnerships concluded by the organization: monetary or in-kind patronage, product-sharing, sponsorship, accord for third-party financing, etc.;
• Implementation of restructuring plans (division into sectors, partial investment of assets, mergers, breakups, etc.) and creation of groupings of means and of networks (GIE, GIP, GCS, GCSMS, SPL, etc.);
• Assistance within the context of the legal and strategic evolution of the organization: status modification, obtaining of acknowledgement of public utility, transformation from association into foundation of public utility or cooperative society (SCOP, SCIC, UES…) ;
• Valorization and protection of the organization’s intangibles (name, logo, copyrights, Internet site…);
• Aid in the context of litigation proceedings over fiscal and social matters;
• Conception and organization of training for directors and managers of nonprofits (agreement No 11752806175) on legal, fiscal and social matters.