Committee of the Charter

The Comité of the Charter (of which the slogan is gift in confidence ) is a French organization independent of control of the association S and foundation S which is approved like members of the Committee and who agree to subject themselves to his control, in order to ensure the transparency of the use of the gifts and Leg S of which they are profit, and the respect by each one of its members of a Charte of common Déontologie.

History

Founded in 1989 with Paris by 18 great associations and social and humane foundations French, the Committee was given for goal to create a relation of Confiance with the public, following the legal vexations which have occurred in the past in certain French or international organizations and which could sow the disorder and doubts in the spirit of the general public concerning the means of collection of the gifts and legacies and the use which was made by it.

Taking account of its own experience and legal evolutions, the Charter must be adapted and refined for better fulfilling the requirements of the public; thus the Committee endeavoured to reinforce are independence in order to better ensure its surveillance mission. Since its creation, the number of associations and foundations adhering to these principles did not cease growing, which makes of this Committee a true “label” recognized so much by the general public, that by the French public authorities which also profit from a greater visibility and transparency of the accounts from these associations and foundations (concerning the use of the public allocations of which some can benefit, and the justification of the tax exemptions of which can profit the givers).

Taking into account the very strict requirements requested by the Committee from its members, it is not easy for an association or foundation to become member of the Committee. As, the growth of the Committee is necessarily very slow and follows a preliminary process of certification or setting in conformity of the operation of the organizations candidates (on a level even more severe as that required by the French law), before the granting of approval like member by the Committee:

Organization and missions

Objectives

The Committee of the Charter is governed like a French association of Loi 1901 (and not an association with free adhesion because this one is conditioned with the acceptance of strict rules, incompatible with the statutes associative generally adopted for declared associations), and acts as total independence of the public authorities.

As the French law obliges there, to be able to profit from the legal personality, this association of private law is declared officially with the police headquarter of Paris.

While bringing a recognized approval, the committee can thus promote the “gift in confidence” near the public, while granting to associations and foundations members the right to affix the logo protected from the Committee of the charter on their calls to the gifts, which allows the public:

to appreciate their action, which meets nonsatisfied needs by the public authority or the market, and whose legitimacy is recognized at the sides of those;
to bring their material support, human or financial so that they carry out the missions of which they are invested;
to be regularly informed on their activities, their operation, their good management and the sparing and effective use of the resources of which they can thus profit.

Thus, each giver can know how its money is spent, and unquestionable being that each association or approved foundation will function in all transparency.

Conditions of membership

To be able to adhere, an association or foundation necessarily must:

to be of right French and to nonlucrative goal (associations, foundations…),
to be of general interest for the general public and to adhere to the objectives of the Committee and its Charter,
to exert its action with the national plan and to exist since at least two years,
to call upon the generosity of the public, mainly in the form of gifts of private individuals, and to collect each year at least 500 000 € of resources private (because same of the limitations of means available to the Committee, due to the primarily voluntary operation of the Committee and which do not enable him to act everywhere),
to make application form by contacting the Committee officially,
to accept one audit of its precondition activities to the proposal for an approval,
to be approved by the general meeting of the Committee.

On the other hand, the Committee cannot accept associations and organizations:

of defense of private interests (GIE, trade union branches specialized in an economic sector, professional consortia, orders, etc),
whose missions are primarily in religious matter, trade-union or political,
financed entirely by the public authorities.

Restrictions of adhesions, and effect on the self-checking and independence of the Committee

As an association, the Committee accepts adhesion like member only associations and foundations approved by the Committee itself, by a vote as a general meeting. This restriction is essential so that the Charter is not deceived by badly disposed associations or people who would benefit wrongly from the logo of the Committee, if this one were forced to accept such adhesions by the simple acceptance of a contribution conferring a right to vote as a general meeting to him.

This private statute does not make it possible the Committee of the Charter to be given itself tax exemptions for the gifts and legacies made with its name, and it is not the role of the Committee of the Charter to receive such gifts, or to manage them itself, nor to even distribute them towards its members. It thus avoids appealing there. The Committee of the Charter thus functions only by self-financing (contribution annual obligatory of the members) and by the calls for capital with its only members approved who agree each one to subject themselves to his established rules by the common Charter, to regulate the overheads related to the activity of control by the Committee of associations and foundations of which it supervises the accounts (fresh auditors and of expertise, councils legal, tax lawyers, court fees and lawyers, relations with the press, expenses of registration communication, fee, legal protection of the Charter, etc)

That could be regarded as a limit with its independence, because it depends directly, to live and undertake its activities, of the good will and the financing by its own members. However, its operating rules prohibit with any its members to have a weight determining in the decisions taken by the Committee.

Thus, more the Committee accepts approved members, more the Committee gains in independence with respect to each one of them whose individual decisive weight can only be reduced. The limits of this growth are however those of the means available to the Committee, means that only provide them its own members, and for whom none them must have a prevalent weight.

Moreover, the direction of the Committee has an autonomous operation with respect to the members, during the duration of its mandate, only renewed at the time of the general meetings of the members of the Charter, or in the event of legal prevention of the one of its directors, by an agent designated beforehand by the General meeting for the corresponding function (vice-president, assistants, auditors, critics, experts) or if necessary an agent imposed by the authorities. Besides the Committee accepts a very broad control of its own operation by the tax authorities, and calls also upon independent and certified thirds, generally voluntary, for the regular control of its own activities.

Obligations and right of the members with respect to the Committee of the Charter

The members are held to respect not only the Professional ethics charter itself concerning:

statutory operation and with not involved management;
the rigor of management;
the quality of the communication and the actions of collections of funds;
financial transparency;

but also to respect the statutory payments and of operation within the Committee him, which has right of access with any information even confidential held by its members (within the limits imposed by the Law which can protect the confidentiality from certain information, such as the medical files and the respect of the private life of the natural persons and the legal protection of the minors), to even carry out investigations relative to its control and surveillance missions for the respect of the Charter.

If the Law does not enable him to have access directly to certain confidential informations, it can on the other hand authorize a natural person or morals (such as the Committee of the Charter) with becoming civil part in a request of investigation by an official service which has this right of investigation. Also the Committee of the Charter reserves the right (nonopposable by one of its members) constantly to become part with such investigations by a third having this privilege (for example by carrying out a request for investigation by an order medical or professional having this privilege and held by the secrecy, such as the Room of the Notaires or the Ordre of the Doctors, or while resorting to the tax authorities or legal), and to use any other legal means allowing him to ensure the effective control of the respect of the Charter by its members and the transparency and the honesty of their accounts.

Beyond this only control, the Committee of the Charter wants to be also innovating, and a force of common proposal, allowing better to do to coincide the objectives of the French associative medium with the French, European and international legal frameworks into force, and to limit as much as possible the drifts of the law under the pressure of the only economic sector or to try to mitigate of them the harmful effects with their activities, by finding the beams necessary allowing to find a right balance.

Also, the Committee is also a forum of exchange of ideas and information, allowing the associative medium to adapt most quickly and effectively possible to the inevitable changes of the legal framework in whom he carries on his activity and carries out the collection of gifts to be financed.

Consequences for the candidates with adhesion

It should be noted that the high level of requirement required for adhesion can involve for certain members of the higher operating costs and management, this is why the smaller charity associations, even approved and recognized by the French administration, can choose not to adhere to the Committee.

It is in the missions of the Committee of the Charter of reducing as much as possible the costs generated by the process of adhesion of associations and foundations candidates, on the one hand by distributing and saving the operating costs of the Committee itself, on the other hand by providing an assistance and councils allowing smallest associations and foundations to manage their accounts more effectively, and by facilitating the information exchanges between members and the division of costs for joint projects.

The economies generated by this process of setting in conformity for a more effective management can thus compensate for the associated costs with adhesion at the Committee, and even release from new resources enabling them to better fill their current objectives or to extend their activities with more ambitious objectives.

the absence of approval by the Committee of the Charter or its withdrawal thus does not mean necessarily that association or the foundation not approved by the Committee is not worthy of confidence by the public, but only that this one was not the object, with its current statute, of a control by the Committee, or that its current statute or its activities does not enable him for the moment to adhere to it.

Utility of adhesion to the Charter, vis-a-vis the recognition of public utility

The public authorities can, independently, approve an association or foundation and confer to him recognized statute the “of public utility,” an official statute enabling him to perceive gifts, donations and legacy while being given advantageous tax exemptions at the same time for it and/or its givers:

Thus for example, the French Association against the myopathies (AFM) is French association receiving from the annual gifts most important in France (in particular via the Telethon) and is recognized of public utility, but it is not currently not member Committee of the Charter because it chose to call rather upon a private organization of certification independent for control of its management and the publication of its results.
On the other hand, adhesion at the Committee of the Charter for associations and foundations much less richly equipped is original, in what it enables them to profit from an economy of scale, by the division of experiment and certain operating costs, while filling of the similar objectives of transparency for the general public, and better visibility and comprehension by the common Charter, symbolized by the official logo of the Committee.
the adhesion of an association or foundation at the Committee of the Charter by no means prohibits to him to collaborate with other associations, foundations or organizations non-member of the Committee to fill the same objectives, as long as this collaboration (and consequently, the use of certain appropriations resulting from the gifts that it perceives) remains in conformity with the common Charter established by the Committee in effective term of management and transparency. In practice, the search for such collaborations with other recognized organizations of utility public remain inevitable and even often desirable, for reasons of economy and effectiveness.

One can note however that associations and foundations members of the Committee of the Charter are recognized of public utility by the public authorities, a condition finally necessary for adhesion to the Charter because the “recognition of public utility”:

fixed of the minimal legal requirements to respect concerning their operation and the transparency of their management, of the minimal obligations also required by the Committee of the Charter,
confers to them tax incentives (exemptions of certain taxes) and financial obvious in term of use of the perceived gifts and investment,
grants the benefit of preferential rates to them for many other services (energy, transport, etc),
gives them sometimes the right to exert in legally reserved fields, to fill of the missions of Public service (in particular in the fields of the education, the Santé, it help of Urgence to the people or the social security),
authorizes them to employ (in some limiting definite by the law) of the personnel under advantageous conditions (exemption of certain obligatory social contributions, contracts helped),
enables them to profit from some Subvention S or guarantees financial allocated or granted by the communities within the framework of this public service, which also requires of their share a transparency of their accounts and activities, and necessarily a control by a third organization independent of the use of the perceived sums, which they is coming from the individuals (gifts, legacy, donations, supply of services) or of the communities (subsidies, placed at the disposal of buildings or materials, loans helped).

All these advantages enable them to allocate the maximum share of the gifts perceived for their use in activities for which they call upon the gifts of the public, and thus take part in the effective management of the resources of which they can thus lay out.

List associations and foundations members and approved

At at the beginning of January 2007, the Committee gathers 55 associations and following foundations of French right, among which majority of the largest recipients of gifts in France; one counts foundations created there to perceive the gifts carried out in the name of natural persons bienfaitrices who transfer in integrality these gifts (to avoid problems of direct imposition of these people), associations law 1901 Frenchwomen (with nonlucrative goal), French sections of great movements international caritives, as well as French branches international organizations having a statute of observer to UNO:

Warning statement of the public concerning the statute of member of the Committee of the Charter

Caution: certain associations or foundations can be dissolved, change statute or can amalgamate within not approved associations broader. If that must occur, the members are held to inform the Committee, which rules quickly to withdraw to put approval or it temporarily in probation, and to inform the public of it of this change via its Internet site.

It then belongs to the new entity to make a new application to join and of approval at the Committee (approval is not automatically acquired of right in the event of legal change of status of any of its members); the public must thus check, before any donation or all leg towards one of its supposed members, if association or the foundation previously approved always has this approval.

In the same way, any member losing the approval of the Committee, whatever is the reason and including during a simple change of status, is held to immediately withdraw any use of the logo of the Committee of the Charter in all his communications, as long as the new entity was not accepted again like official member with the Charter.

The Committee of the Charter reserves the right to constantly prosecute any natural person or morals making an improper use of the name and/or Comité logo of the Charter, even if no abuse were noted concerning the attribution and the use of gifts perceived by this natural person or morals.

The official list of the members of the Committee of the Charter is updated permanently on the official site of the Committee, which can also be contacted to check this statute.

Until now, the case of exclusion of a member did not occur, because the announced cases generally result from adaptation to a constraining legal context, for which the Charter even must also evolve/move, on a proposal from its members. The principle remains that the Committee will inform its members and will leave them a sufficient time judged to adapt to the changes or to make the corrections necessary.

the contents of this article even does not constitute a call to the gift, and of approval by the Committee of the Charter itself cannot be prevailed.

Official description for the use of the press

In the communications intended for the public, the Committee of the Charter is defined formally thus (at the beginning of 2007):

; Concerning the Committee of the Charter

Created in 1989, the Committee of the Charter of the gift in confidence is an independent organism of control of associations and foundations calling upon the generosity of the public.

Its vocation is to promote, through the approval which it grants to its members, a greater rigor to allow the “gift in confidence. ” It prepared a Professional ethics charter and approved today 55 associations and foundations which voluntarily adhere to it and solemnly begin not only to respect the Professional ethics charter but also to be subjected to a continuous assessment.

It has an inciting action near the whole of the caritative world.

This quotation is conventionally affixed at the end of the texts and press articles referring to him, and is accompanied with indications (if possible up to date) making it possible to contact it (to consult the external bonds below).

See too

National union of the organizations calling upon the generosity of the public (UNOGEP)

External bonds

comitecharte.org, the official site of the Committee of the Charter, gift in confidence .

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