All cash gifts must be substantiated for a donor to take a charitable deduction. Substantiation may include a cancelled check or a written communication from the recipient charity showing the name of the charity, the date of the contribution, and the amount of the contribution. This new requirement, part...
Peninsula-Silicon Valley Conference: Raising Money in the Real World – A Nonprofit Law Perspective
I recently returned from participating as a "Curbside Consultant" in the Peninsula-Silicon Vally Conference: Raising Money in the Real World co-sponsored by CompassPoint Nonprofit Services and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (recently created by the merger of the Peninsula Community Foundation and Community Foundation Silicon Valley) and held on...
Google.org – Not a Nonprofit
Google.org, self-referred to as the philanthropic arm of Google, was featured in the September 13, 2006 issue of The New York Times. The interesting aspect of Google.org, which will focus on on several areas including global poverty, energy and the environment, is that the organization has been established as...
California Association of Nonprofits 2006 Nonprofit Finance Conference
The California Association of Nonprofits (CAN) held its annual Nonprofit Finance Conference for the Northern California region on September 24, 2006. The quality of the programs was uniformly high, and the information delivered was very enlightening, even for experienced nonprofit professionals. This is now on the list of my...
New Form 990 Disclosure Requirements
Congress enacted two important changes that went into effect on August 17, 2006: Form 990-T, used to report unrelated business income tax, has been designated a public record (for 501(c)(3) organizations only). Parent organizations that control subsidiary corporations (as defined by IRC Section 512(b)(13)) have new disclosure requirements on...
Patriot Act and Nonprofits
Guidestar recently published an article on "The Patriot Act and the Nonprofit Sector: Charitable Organizations After 9/11." The article makes the following points: The Act stipulates that financial contributions to questionable organizations are a punishable crime. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) lists individuals and organizations that the...
Form 5768 – 501(h) Election for Public Charities
Form 5768 – Election/Revocation of Election by an Eligible Section 501(c)(3) Organization to Make Expenditures to Influence Legislation. This is the form used to make (or revoke) a Section 501(h) election (discussed in the Introduction to Lobbying by Public Charities post dated July 22, 2006).
IRS Determines NAACP Did Not Violate 501(c)(3) Prohibition Against Political Campaign Activities
On August 31, 2006, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) released a statement of its receipt of a letter from the IRS informing the NAACP that the IRS had concluded its investigation of the organization’s activities with a finding that the NAACP did not violate...
Welfare and Veterans’ Organization Exemptions from Property Taxes – California Nonprofit Law
In general, the Welfare and Veterans’ Organization Exemptions from local property taxes are available to property of organizations formed and operated exclusively for qualifying purposes (religious, scientific, hospital or charitable), which use such property exclusively for those purposes. The Board of Equalization ("BOE") and county assessors jointly administer the...
Paper – Governance Issues
You can download my paper on Governance Issues. Download governance_issues.doc