Nicole Copley is an NGO lawyer with clients both locally and internationally, and the author of NGO Matters: A Practical Legal Guide to Starting Up. She shares some of the common mistakes made by many fledgling NGOs.
1 FAILING TO CONNECT WITH EXISTING NGOs There is a lot of duplication of effort and projects in the sector. Founders of NGOs should, before they consider starting up a new organisation, see who is already working on something similar in their area, and whether they could find a way to support or join forces with an existing project.
2 NOT THINKING THROUGH OPTIONS FOR LEGAL STRUCTURES My guide deals with this issue and how NGOs, for lack of information and pausing for thought and taking advice, use the closest or easiest legal structure, which is often not suitable for how they want the organisation to be perceived or governed. Once the wrong choice is made, and all the other registrations are in place, it is tedious and expensive to undo it and get it right.
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