The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) and National Association of State Charities Officials (NASCO) held their 2024 Charities Conference on October 8-10. This conference is the sole annual event at which charity regulators and nonprofit organizations and their attorneys, accountants, fundraisers, and advisers can meet, learn about, and...
RISK MANAGEMENT
Enterprise Risk Management for Nonprofits: An Introduction
Enterprise risk management (ERM) is a strategic approach to managing risk holistically across the organization and its ecosystem. Under ERM, risks are not merely identified and addressed on a program or business segment level, they are surfaced so they can be assessed, analyzed, and managed with consideration of the...
Some Thoughts for First-Year Nonprofits
Congratulations on your first year as a nonprofit corporation exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code! Your first anniversary is a notable milestone and a chance to take a quick look back as it relates to moving forward with impact and compliance. This post is written partly...
Important Considerations for your Nonprofit’s Gift Acceptance Policy
While it may seem intuitive for a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to openly accept gifts without question, certain gifts can result in consequences that harm the nonprofit’s mission, drain its finances, and/or damage the nonprofit’s reputation. In order to avoid such consequences, it’s best practice for nonprofits to adopt a Gift Acceptance...
Nonprofit Radio: Risk Management II
I’ll be on Tony Martignetti’s Nonprofit Radio podcast speaking with Tony in Part II of our two-part discussion on nonprofit risk management. You can find our post on Part I, focusing on indemnification, here. While we focused mostly on legal risks, there are other risks that can be equally or even...
Nonprofit Radio: Risk Management I – Indemnification
I spoke with host Tony Martignetti on his Nonprofit Radio podcast about indemnification as Part I of our two-part discussion on nonprofit risk management. This follows a recent post we published on indemnification provisions in Bylaws. But on this program, we were able to discuss indemnification in the contexts of both governance...
Traditional Grantmaking Procedures: Are They Really All That Necessary?
I attended a seminar hosted by Exponent Philanthropy where the presenters discussed a unique approach to grantmaking that they referred to as “Catalytic Grantmaking.” The presenters suggested that many of the steps in what they identified as the “traditional grantmaking” process could be ignored to produce a quicker and...
Nonprofit Mergers – Part I: Basic Legal Considerations
Nonprofit corporations may decide to merge for many reasons, including to better advance a common purpose or to expand the range of services offered to common beneficiaries. Generally, in a simple 2-party merger between A (the surviving corporation) and B (the merging corporation also referred to in the law...
Standing to Sue: Director who Resigns or is Removed
An appellate court in California held that a director of a California nonprofit public benefit corporation who had standing to sue the corporation and sue another director for self-dealing did not lose standing after she was removed. In Summers v. Colette, 2019 Cal. App. LEXIS 347, the court differentiated...
Nonprofit Law and Ethics
Nonprofits are subject to laws with which they must comply or face the possibility of legal penalties. But they are also subject to ethical expectations from their key stakeholders. Certainly, many ethical standards are codified in the law. For example, compensating an executive of a charity an excessive amount...