A community organisation may be a sporting or social club, a lobby group, a welfare organisation, a self-support group, a day care centre or any similar body. When a group of people agree to act together as a club, group, or organisation, they form an association.

To carry out the functions for which they are formed, associations have rules about how they will operate. These rules can be unwritten but are usually written down formally as a constitution or rules. Draft or model rules for community organisations are available from the South Australian Council of Social Service or from the head offices of organisations that encourage new groups to set up.

The constitution of an association is like a contract between the members setting out their agreement about how they will act together within the group. However, even if an association has a constitution, it does not exist at law unless it is incorporated.

The law that regulates non-commercial incorporated association is the Associations Incorporation Act 1985 . The Act is administered by the Corporate Affairs Commission, part of the Office of Consumer and Business Affairs (OCBA).

OCBA has produced model rules for an incorporated association. As well as being available online, they can be obtained from .

General information to help community groups manage their affairs is available from the South Australian Council of Social Service (). They have a library that is available to the public and sell some publications.

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