Creating an NGO can’t be too hard in Romania, can it? Well,
the answer is no – IF you have the right people who know what they are doing to
help you.
Bridging The Gap has been extremely lucky so far to have the
support of many different companies in Bucharest. The first was the law firm of
Vernon David Legal who generously agreed to assist in the creation of our charity. It’s
no understatement to say that this service has been an absolute Godsend.
When we decided to start up the organisation back in
October, we had hoped that by the time that the operations started in January
with the team in place, we would be able to have the registration process well
under way. Well, sadly this wasn’t the case as there is a ton of grassroots
work that needs to be done first.
As lawyers, Vernon David knew the process backwards and were
keen to get us started. On 17th December, “Asociația Bridging The Gap” was born as our name
was registered with the Ministry of Justice. Step one was complete.
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| Bridging The Gap's name registration approval |
Once this has been done, it’s time to put together your
portfolio of documents to take to the Ministry of Justice for the registration
process. For any of you who would like to read this in Romania, please see
Ordnance nr. 26/2000 which can be found on the internet. These documents
included the following:
- Information and ID of the founding members (of
which there must be 3)
- The aims and objectives of the organisation
which are included in the Statute (a 12 page document detailing exactly what
you intend to do) and the Constitution (which is a shorter version of the
Statute)
- A bank statement showing that each of the
founders has invested patrimony in the organisation. This is 900 Romanian lei
in total (around £180)
- Details of the Board of Directors (again 3
individuals)
- Information on how to join the Board of
Directors and Board of Trustees
- Information on where the finances for the
organisation will come from
- Information on where the office headquarters
will be
This process has proven quite timely as we have come up
against different obstacles. First of all, each founder has to either have a
Romanian Social Security number or declare in front of a lawyer that they owe
no money to the state. Other problems we have faced include having the relevant
documents to open up a bank account as British citizens, deciding whether Bridging
The Gap will be an association or foundation (there is a big difference which
we’ll write about later) and finalising our aims and objectives.
So, ten weeks after arriving in Romania to start up Bridging
The Gap, we finally went to the Court House last week to register as a legal entity. One of the firm’s junior lawyers, Florin Corneanu, was well versed and
confident that it would be a quick process. In fact, he was right. While many
of the other organisations were in front of the judge for a few minutes, we
were in and out in under 25 seconds. The judge had no questions about our
objectives, aims or goals and approved it immediately.
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| Florin, our lawyer |
Although the process took us slightly longer than we had
hoped, it was absolutely necessary to get these first steps right and Bridging
The Gap is grateful to the team at Vernon David who have given so generously of
their time and effort to help us out. Check out their website
here if you are
in need of any legal services in Bucharest or Chisinau. I cannot recommend them highly
enough.
On a final note, there is still a two week window before
Bridging The Gap becomes fully operational. Our intentions have been announced on
the Ministry of Justice website and we have two wait two weeks in case someone
wants to object to our registration. Kind of like at a wedding. I hope that
this doesn’t happen.
