BCBusiness

40 BCBusiness FEBRUARy 2018 CANDACE MEyER It's easy to start a non-prot, Rans maintains, but "it is time-consuming and not quite so easy to make an application for charitable status. It's quite another thing to raise money that warrants get- ting a charitable status." First steps Not-for-prots—called societies in B.C. because their governing legislation is the Societies Act—aren't required to incorpo- rate. When they do, it's usually to access funding or to open a bank account, Rans says. "There's also a perception, very much like in the for-prot world, that incorporation gives you a certain legitimacy." The ƒirst step is sending a name approval request to BC Registries and Online Services. Then you need three directors; a constitution outlining the purposes for creating the society; and bylaws, which can be modelled on the ones attached to the Societies Act. Input the information to the Societies Online application on the B.C. government web- site, press submit, and you're good to go. Becoming a charity To issue tax receipts, a society will need to apply to the Canada Revenue Agency for charitable status. That's a separate application, and it's not for the faint of heart, Rans warns. "While lay people can do it, it is one of those areas you would be well advised to get legal advice because you'll save yourself some head- ache down the road," she recommends. And it could take a year from the date of the application to nding out whether you get charitable status. The CRA designates charities under O riginally from South Africa, Lotte Davis co- founded AG Hair, which manufactures profes- sional hair care products, in 1989 with her husband, John Davis, in the basement of their North Vancouver home. "I always knew that I wanted to go back to Africa," says Davis, who had immi- grated to Toronto in 1960 at the age of nine. In 2006, she sponsored 30 African girls through World Vision, but after a couple of years she wanted to start build- ing schools and turned to Flying Doctors of East Africa ( AMREF) to help her nd locations. Eventually Davis realized that she needed to start her own charity. The people she was working with didn't share her sense of urgency, communication was poor, the bureaucracy was crip- pling, money was being lost, and she couldn't get any- where, she explains. Once she founded and began run- ning One Girl Can the way she did her business, she saw quicker results. It also became clear that AG, which had been fund- ing the schools, would never have enough money to achieve some of Davis's goals, so she would have to fund- raise externally. AG donates a percentage of every bottle it sells, and the company's employees, salons and dis- tributors contribute, with the latter alone donating 16 per cent of the charity's revenue in the scal year ending in August 2017. "Once I got my licence with Revenue Canada in 2013, we started doing fundraising events downtown, and then we came up with campaigns and programs, sort of doing philanthropy C h a r i t a B l e o r g a n i z a t i o n Lotte Davis started One Girl Can to build schools and careers in Africa A Business Approach "We don't just build schools or just oer scholarships. We nurture her and make sure that every single one of the girls is successful" —Lotte Davis GIRL PowER Davis supports students until they graduate and find a job

• Cover