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Charity Update pt. 2

I’m sending this unusual midweek post to keep you as up to date as possible. This past Tuesday two of our Zoe board members and Katy met with our solicitor (lawyer). Here’s what we’ve discovered.

  • He missed a deadline for some simple corrections and inquiries regarding our constitution. He will request a new inquiry from the Charity Regulator and submit those in a timely fashion. He was apologetic.

  • According to him, once that is submitted and approved, all that is left is for our board to ratify the changes. At that point we should receive our approval.

  • Our solicitor believes we are at the end of the process. As far we know, he is one of the most experienced in the area of charity status applications so our feeling is that he is correct.

Communication from our solicitor has been less than optimal so here are some things we asked from him.

  • To be cc’d on every email he sends/receives from the Charity Regulator.

  • To obtain a written statement from the Charity Regulator of any final steps in the process to our approval.

  • To get all this done ASAP.

We have an amazing board and the two who jumped in for this situation have been stellar. They both have legal backgrounds and know how to handle peers. We feel more confident than ever that the light is at the end of the tunnel for our charity status.

Please continue to pray as the coming weeks will be crucial in submitted necessary documents as well as getting straight answers from the Charity Regulator. We’re so grateful to have you all praying and supporting through these final difficult moments before breakthrough!

Charity Update

First off…we still haven’t gotten it. Here’s the latest.

One of our board members, who is a barrister (lawyer), is concerned that someone in the Charity Regulator is dragging their feet waiting for a legislation to pass that would make organisations like ours unqualified for charity status. This is just a suspicion as we are not aware of any such legislation. However, our board member is connected politically and may have caught wind of something in the works.

We have been in communication with our solicitor (lawyer). We are concerned that he is not being as aggressive or as timely as we would like. We are asking him to arrange a zoom call with members of our board, Katy, and their relevant staff to discuss ALL remaining concerns they have keeping us from approval. Our lawyer responded by scheduling a meeting with Katy and members of our board. We are not sure what he wants to talk about, but we are hoping it’s productive.

I’ll be totally transparent, this has become a massive source of anxiety for Katy, myself, and many of our team. We are 4+ years into the process, and our patience is pretty much gone. We need your prayers. Pray with us for favour with the Charity Regulator team. Pray for favour with our solicitor. And please pray God puts this through before any legislations even become public.

Thank you for standing with us and for your faithful support. It blesses us to know we’re in this together!