Board charter drafting for New Zealand charities and organisations

A common issue is that people assume everyone has the same understanding of the board's role when they do not. Without a clear charter, there can be confusion about who makes which decisions, how authority is delegated, what information should come to the board, and what standards directors or committee members are expected to follow. That can create inconsistency across meetings and make onboarding harder for new board members. A charter helps turn informal practice into a written governance framework that people can actually refer back to.

It commonly sets out the purpose of the board, the board's responsibilities, the division between governance and management, board composition, chair responsibilities, meeting procedures, decision-making rules, delegations, conflicts processes and expectations around conduct or confidentiality. Depending on the organisation, it may also refer to committees, reporting lines, strategic oversight and how the charter interacts with a constitution, trust deed or rules. The exact content depends on how the organisation is structured and how governance works in practice, not just on the name of the document.

This service is often used by charities, incorporated societies, clubs, associations and social enterprises that want clearer governance settings for an existing board or are setting one up for the first time. It can also help where an organisation has grown quickly and informal processes no longer match the way decisions are being made. If funders, stakeholders or incoming board members are asking for more clarity around governance, a board charter is often one of the first documents to review alongside the constitution or other governing rules.

A constitution, trust deed or set of rules usually establishes the organisation and its formal governing framework. A board charter sits underneath that and deals more directly with how the board operates on a practical level. It can explain roles, meeting processes, delegations and governance expectations in more detail than the founding document does. The charter should align with the higher-level governing documents, not contradict them. If your existing documents are outdated or inconsistent, that may need to be addressed as part of the wider governance picture.

Once engaged, we gather the practical information that affects the charter, such as your structure, board composition, existing governing documents, committee arrangements and current decision-making processes. We then prepare the charter with those settings in mind and work through any key governance points that need to be clarified before finalising it. If there are gaps between what your organisation does in practice and what the existing documents say, we can flag that early. Timing usually depends on how settled your governance structure already is and how quickly instructions are provided.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Board Charter service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.