New association: plan the website from founding day

A registered association does not come into being on one day but in stages, and each stage fixes details that appear on the website. During preparation, the purpose, working name and place are set, and founding members are sought. The founding meeting adopts the articles and elects the board. The board applies for registration to the local court at the seat of the association (Sections 55 and 59 BGB), and with registration the name receives the suffix "eingetragener Verein". If the association is to pursue tax-privileged purposes, the tax office finally reviews the articles. Aligning the website with these stages rather than with a page builder means writing each text once and at the right moment – and not having to rebuild half the site after registration. What a website for associations needs in day-to-day operation is a topic of its own; this article is about the weeks before.

The table shows why a finished draft before the founding meeting rarely holds: name, seat and board are only fixed once the meeting has voted, and the register number only exists with registration. A site that grows in stages is therefore not a makeshift but the right form for this phase. That applies to a sports club just as much as to the friends association of a school or the initiative that wants to run a neighbourhood festival for good. The difference between associations lies in the content of the home page, not in the order of the steps.

Before the local court registers the association, the number has to be right. Section 56 BGB phrases it as a target provision: registration should only take place if the number of members is at least seven. Section 59 BGB adds that the articles should be signed by at least seven members and state the date on which they were adopted. Seven people who share the same idea and are willing to sign are not found by every initiative within its own circle of friends. Here a simple page can do more than a notice board: it explains the purpose, names the date of the founding meeting and gives a contact person who answers questions.

Which content the page carries depends on the purpose of the association. Newly founded associations are most often active in culture (16 percent), followed by sport, education and leisure with 13 percent each (ZiviZ im Stifterverband). A cultural association shows a first project early on, a sports club the training times it plans to offer, an educational association its first course topic. If you offer courses, the article on dog trainers and full courses has ideas on how dates and registration come together on a small site. Anyone collecting names and addresses through a form needs a short note on processing next to it; the GDPR basics for small websites apply to associations just as they do to businesses.

If the association is to pursue tax-privileged purposes, the tax office follows the local court. Section 60a of the German Fiscal Code (AO) provides that compliance with the requirements of the articles is confirmed separately – on application by the corporate body, here the association, or of the tax office's own motion during the corporation tax assessment. Only then may the association issue donation receipts: Section 63 (5) AO ties this to the confirmation of compliance with the articles dating back no more than three calendar years, as long as no exemption notice has been issued yet, or to the date of the exemption notice dating back no more than five years. For the website this results in a clear order, and it starts with restraint.

Advice on purpose, articles and tax privileges belongs with the tax office or a tax adviser, registration with the local court. The website reflects what was decided there – no more and no earlier. That sounds like caution, but above all it is a question of credibility: anyone announcing a tax privilege on the home page that the tax office has not yet confirmed has to withdraw the statement later, in front of exactly the people they wanted to win. This article gives orientation, it does not replace legal or tax advice.

Put the draft articles, the list of founding members and the minutes of the founding meeting side by side before the first line of text is written. They give you name, seat, purpose and board – and with them almost the entire imprint text. Check the domain in the same week in which the name goes into the draft articles, and set up the association mailbox before the first invitation is sent. The process is similar to that of businesses: there, too, most details are already in the papers, as the article on getting online after registering a new business shows.

Then schedule two fixed update dates: the day of registration, on which suffix, register and register number are added, and the day of the tax office ruling, on which the donation page goes live. If you know these two dates, you do not have to rebuild the site constantly but add to it twice in a targeted way. Both changes are small if they are prepared: the text for the donation page can long be written and only waits for the date of the ruling. A contact form with few fields is enough for enquiries from interested people during this time.