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Charity Central is a Canada-wide charity law education initiative of the Legal Resource Centre of Alberta, made possible with a financial contribution from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). This initiative supports registered charities by enabling us to create free, plain language resources in a variety of formats and offering online and face-to-face learning opportunities.

These resources, available in English and French, meet the diverse needs of registered charities in fulfilling their legal obligations. Our target audiences are:

* small, medium and large charities;

* staff, board members and volunteers involved with charities; and

* professionals and educational agencies that support the charitable sector.

The first phase of the initiative began in 2008 and has resulted in resources that provide support to the charitable sector in meeting CRA's requirements for:

* fundraising guidance;

* issuing receipts for donations; and

* maintaining books and records in compliance with a registered charity's obligations under the Income Tax Act.

Office in a Box

One of Charity Central's most popular products is "Office in a Box." Office in a Box is a system that helps to organize and archive a charity's most important information. It can also be used as an educational and accountability tool for board members. The primary audience for Office in a Box is small and rural charities, but it serves as a valuable guide for larger charities too. There are different versions of Office in a Box available for Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. For a free download to make your own Office in a Box, visit WWW.chantycentral.ca/office/all. To order a completed box, visit our online store at http://sitebuilder.securenetshop.com/legalresourcecentre/store_front

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What people are saying about Office in a Box:

"If every non-profit/charity has it and reads it, it answers a lot of questions and offers a lot of resources. I follow all the links ... tremendous information!"

"This is an excellent resource! It should be mandatory for anyone registered."

Road to Accountability

For our current project, "Road to Accountability," we have created plain language resource materials and we provide information and education about accountability and transparency for registered charities and not-for-profit organizations. The following resources are just a sample of the wide range of materials that Road to Accountability offers.

Road to Accountability Handbook

The...