Clients of your organisation fall into a special category of person.  Several areas of law apply to the relationship between an organisation and its clients.  These include privacy laws, and regulation of the particular industry (for example if health services are provided or your organisation sells food or alcohol).

Privacy

Go to Not-for-profit Law’s page on privacy law for detailed information on privacy requirements and Australia’s privacy regulator.

Duty of care, risk and insurance

Your organisation is likely to owe a duty of care to its service users, and your organisation should consider what potential risks are involved in providing services, and how to manage those risks.

Not-for-profit law has information on Risk and Insurance that can help your organisation assess risks and appropriate responses to risk.

Advertising and consumers

Your group should also make sure that it complies with laws about advertising and promotion when advertising its services. See the Not-for-profit Law page on advertising and communications.

Clients vs members

Remember that people can fall into several categories when they interact with your organisation, for example a member may also be a client.  Your organisation should make sure that it meets its obligations for each circumstance, including maintaining appropriate and separate files of information. For example, a common issue is the recording of sensitive medical information or other inappropriate information on the members register of a not-for-profit.  Medical information should be kept separately to information relating to a person's membership status.