Top 10 Provisions to Include in Your Corporate Bylaws

Statement of Purpose

Your statement of purpose should reflect every facet of your corporation and its particular niche. It should fundamentally provide the following information:

• Why you are in business
• Who your primary customers are
• What you do for your customers
• What makes your services or products extraordinary
• How you differ from your competitors
• How you will go about reaching your business goals

Essentially, your statement of purpose describes the reason for what you do and the motivation behind it. This can be extremely important if you are a nonprofit corporation because what you write in your statement of purpose can determine whether or not your corporation qualifies for 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status and are approved by the IRS as a tax-exempt organization.

The federal government does not require any specific language to be used in your statement of purpose in order to qualify for tax exempt status, but there is certain language that they look for. So, be sure to do some research when writing your statement of purpose if you are looking to ensure 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status for your corporation.

Members

This provision addresses the types of members your corporation has, their voting rights, and the procedures for adding new members, if applicable. Some corporations have members, others do not.

If you have members, then your corporation should have a formal membership policy. This policy should specify:

• the rights and responsibilities of your members,
• their qualifications,
• voting criteria,
• how and when members will meet,
• how members will be disciplined, and
• how membership can be revoked or rescinded.

Unless otherwise specified in your bylaws, a member of a corporation can be an individual, a corporation, a general or limited partnership, an association, or any other entity. Members of your corporation may participate in meetings of the members by either being physically present at such meeting or by means of a conference call, video call, or any other means of communicating by which all persons participating can hear each other at the same time.

Board of Directors

Corporate bylaws commonly include information that specifies, for example, the number of directors the corporation has, how they will be elected, their qualification, and the length of their terms. It can also specify when, where, and how your board of directors can call and conduct meetings, and voting requirements.

A corporation’s board of directors plays an important role in corporate governance. They oversee all of the officers of the company and will often be involved in discussing strategy and planning for a corporation. Directors, unlike the officers of a corporation, are usually not employees and report only to the shareholders.

Alternatively, individuals may be appointed or elected to your board of directors by members of your corporation. Likewise, any director elected by these members may also be removed, with or without cause, by the members of your corporation.

This provision should also specify the number of directors needed to constitute a quorum (the number of directors that have to be present to vote on an issue) and how your board of directors can take action.

Typically, any majority of directors will constitute a quorum, as long as it consists of at least one-third of the total number of directors. Furthermore, any action taken by a majority of directors present at a board meeting at which a quorum is present should be deemed an act of the entire board.

Finally, it should be made clear that your board of directors may take action without meeting if all directors consent to the action and when this consent is set forth in a resolution, which is then signed and recorded in your corporate minute book.

Shareholders' Meetings

Information regarding when you will hold annual and special meetings of your corporation's shareholders, as well as how notice of these meetings shall be given, the order of business that will be followed, and the quorum required to vote at such meetings, will be specified in this provision.

Arguably, the most important requirement of a corporation is its annual shareholder meeting. This may take place as a physical gathering of shareholders held in any location that has been approved by your board of directors. On the other hand, if your corporation has only one or just a few shareholders, it may be conducted on paper instead.

That being said, your corporation's first shareholder meeting should be called no later than 18 months after incorporation, and subsequently, no later than 15 months after the first annual meeting.

Furthermore, your shareholders are entitled to receive notice of the time and place of any shareholder meetings. This notice should be sent no more than 50 and no less 21 days before a meeting.

The business conducted at an annual meeting of shareholders usually consists of the following:

• Reviewing the performance of the corporation
• Reviewing the corporation's financial statements
• Appointing auditors
• Inspecting auditor's reports
• Electing officers and directors
• Confirming, amending, or rejecting bylaws

With regards to voting at a shareholders meeting, each shareholder is usually entitled to one vote for each share he or she holds, unless your articles of incorporation say otherwise. Furthermore, a shareholder is normally allowed to appoint someone else (a proxy) to attend a shareholder meeting and vote on his or her behalf.

Committees

As mentioned above, your board of directors will play an important role in corporate governance. Inside of your board of directors you can also have smaller groups of directors (committees) that perform very important tasks. This provision pertains to:

• what kind of committees your corporation should have;
• how often they should meet;
• how they will operate; and
• what they are authorized to do.

Committees, which are usually established and dissolved by a corporate resolution, consist of board members who are put together for specific purposes. The idea is for the corporation to take advantage of the expertise possessed by certain members of its board of directors in order to solve problems or address issues that require a certain amount of specialized knowledge.

There may be certain members of your board of directors that have very valuable skill sets. For example, if you have a financial expert on your board, you may want to put him or her on a committee that deals with financial problems. Likewise, if you have a fundraising expert on your board, he or she can lead the fundraising committee.

A committee can, therefore, be created around a board member who has the specific skill set needed to solve a particular problem. Its function is not to make binding decisions but to recommend to the board what decisions should be made.

There are essentially two types of committees that can be established by your board of directors: standing committees or ad hoc committees. Standing committees are committees that are running all the time, while ad hoc committees are those that are created around a given issue or problem and then dissolved when the issue has been resolved.

• Executive - acts on behalf of the board during the periods between board meetings
• Finance - oversees the budget process and ensure that financial reports are handled correctly
• Fundraising - involved in soliciting new fundraising opportunities and creating materials around fundraising
• Compensation - decides, for example, how the directors of the company are to be compensated
• Audit - oversee audits that happen only periodically
• Research - formed around a given issue that the board needs to know more about
• Ethics - convened to discuss any ethically-sensitive issue brought up by one of the executives or other board members

Stock

Your corporation should not do business until it has issued stock to its shareholders. Here you will explain how the issuance of stock certificates will proceed, who will be entitled to receive stock in the company, the different classes of stock that will be issued and to whom, and how the transfers of stock shall be made.

Stock or equity in a corporation comes in the form of shares. Each share represents a percentage of ownership in the corporation. There are fundamentally two types of stock that can be offered by a corporation — common stock and preferred stock — and each has a different set of ownership rights associated with it. These rights are referred to as preferences.

Preferred stock, as the name implies, generally comes with a lot more preferences than common stock. Some of these preferences include the following:

• Voting - the right to vote on company issues
• Dividends - the right to receive accumulative and/or noncumulative dividends
• Redemption rights - the right to sell your shares back to the company if you choose
• Anti-dilution - protect against the value of the shares being diluted when the company loses value
• Rights of first refusal - when the company offers shares for sale they have the right to buy first

Preferred stockholders generally have more power than common stockholders in terms of corporate involvement. Furthermore, when a company is liquidated or sold, preferred stockholders will be paid before common stockholders see any money.

Officers

Your bylaws should include provisions for electing and appointing officers, and to specify whether or not these officers will be board members and what responsibilities they will have.

Officers are generally employees of a corporation, although they don't always have to be. They oversee the day-to-day operation of the corporation and report directly to the board of directors. They are usually elected or appointed annually by the board, and may typically be removed at any time if it is in the best interest of the corporation.

Some typical titles or positions held by officers include the following:

• President
• Vice President
• Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
• Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
• Treasurer

The various officers of a corporation typically include at least a president, one or more vice presidents, a secretary, and a treasurer. Also, unless specified otherwise in your bylaws, an individual can be both an officer and a director, and may hold more than one office, as long as it is not both president and secretary.

Indemnification

A corporation's bylaws should generally include a provision indemnifying its directors and officers from any liability that they may be exposed to because of their association with the corporation. Directors and officers will typically want to be indemnified to the maximum extent permitted by law. This may be included in your bylaws or your articles of incorporation, or both.

Conflict of Interest

Here your bylaws will require your directors to disclose both actual and potential conflicts of interest and to exclude themselves from any discussion of related matters that may be under consideration by your board of directors. This provision is very important as it demonstrates to prospective board members what is inherent in the fiduciary responsibilities that they will be undertaking, and it also sends a message to those who will do business with the corporation that procedural safeguards are in place to prevent abuses.

Amendment to the Bylaws

Finally, this provision should outline how your corporation’s bylaws can be amended when the need arises and should specify the requirements for amending bylaws under the state law, your articles of incorporation, and any other internal rules established by your board of directors or committees.

While most corporate bylaws are written thoughtfully and with the corporation's long-term outlook in mind, the fact remains that at some point, most corporations will find it necessary to review their bylaws and change them if certain provisions have become obsolete, unenforceable, or undesirable.

Conclusion

It is important to the success of any organization that it articulates the rules and regulations governing how it will be structured and managed. Your bylaws provide you with a vehicle to adopt guidelines by which your corporation will operate and to address potential issues long before they occur.

A well-thought-out set of corporate bylaws should never be overlooked. Instead, they should be prioritized and given the respect and attention they deserve as one of the most important investments you can make in terms of the long-term success of your corporation.

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