Legal Definitions - founder

A founder is an individual or group responsible for establishing or creating an organization, institution, business, or other entity. This role often involves providing the initial vision, resources, or financial support necessary to bring the entity into existence and ensure its early operation or future needs. In specific legal contexts, particularly when creating a trust, a founder may also be referred to as a "settlor."

Here are some examples illustrating the concept of a founder:

• Imagine a software engineer who develops a groundbreaking new application and then creates a company to market and distribute it. This engineer is the founder of the company because they conceived the original idea, developed the core product, and established the business entity to bring it to the public.

• Consider a prominent philanthropist who donates a substantial sum of money to a university to establish a new institute dedicated to climate change research. This philanthropist is the founder of the research institute, as their significant financial contribution and vision were instrumental in its creation and will support its ongoing operations.

• When an individual decides to set aside a portion of their wealth to create a legal trust, specifying how these assets will be managed and distributed to their grandchildren over several decades, that individual is the founder of the trust. In this specific legal context, they are also known as the settlor, as they are the one who established the trust agreement and funded it with assets.