Starting a Community Group: What We Learned Registering a CBO

People sometimes ask how to start something like this. Not how to run a large charity, but how a handful of neighbours who want to help can become an organisation that can hold funds, be trusted and last.

We are not experts on Kenyan law and this is not legal advice. What follows is what we learned registering a CBO in Kiambu County, offered in case it saves someone a wasted journey.

Decide what you actually do first

The single most useful thing we did was narrow it.

It is tempting to list everything you might one day want to do. Resist that. Your certificate names your activities, and those activities become what you may legitimately claim. An organisation registered for three things and advertising six has a problem, whether or not anyone has noticed yet.

Ours names three: caring for orphans and vulnerable children, the elderly and people with disabilities; advocacy; and networking and community building. Everything we do fits inside those. When something does not fit, that is a signal to think harder rather than to stretch the wording.

Get the people right before the paperwork

A CBO needs officials, and in practice needs at least a chairperson, a secretary and a treasurer. These are not honorary titles. The treasurer will handle money and report on it, the secretary will keep records that must exist, and the chairperson carries responsibility when something goes wrong.

Choose people who will still be around in three years and who can be told they are wrong. A group of friends who cannot disagree with each other will struggle the first time money is short.

Write a constitution you will actually follow

You will need one, and the temptation is to copy something and file it. That is a mistake, because it becomes the document you are held to.

Ours covers membership and how people join, contributions, meetings and how often, elections every three years, what happens when someone resigns or is expelled, how the accounts are audited, and how the constitution itself can be amended. It is not elegant. It is specific, which matters more.

The provisions that have proved most useful are the dull ones: that any two of three officials sign on the account, and that the treasurer must report at the annual meeting. Those two lines do more for trust than any statement of values.

The county office is where it happens

Registration goes through the county department handling gender and social services, at sub-county level. Ours came through Ruiru Sub County, signed by the Gender and Social Development Officer.

Go in person, take everything, and expect to go back. Officers are generally helpful, and the process moves at the speed of paperwork. Ask exactly what is required before you travel, because a second trip for one missing document is the most common way people lose a week.

Read the conditions on the certificate

Ours carries two, printed on the front. The certificate must be renewed every year. A diary must be maintained and quarterly statistical returns filed.

People miss these. A lapsed certificate is an awkward thing to explain to a donor, and quarterly returns are far easier to file if you have been keeping records all along rather than reconstructing them the week they are due.

Open the account properly

Take the certificate and a bank introduction letter from the sub-county office to the bank. Register more than one signatory and require at least two to sign.

Do not, under any circumstances, collect donations through a personal M-Pesa number. It is the fastest way to destroy trust you have not yet built, and it makes honest accounting impossible.

Then start small and keep records

The organisation is the easy part. Turning up consistently is the hard part.

Start with what you can sustain: one centre, a few households, a schedule you will actually keep. Write down what you did and what it cost, from the first week. When someone eventually asks what your organisation has achieved, you will either have records or you will have recollections, and only one of those is worth anything.

If you are setting something up in Kiambu and want to compare notes, get in touch. Networking is one of our registered activities, and it applies to organisations as much as to families.