Global Giving
February 2012
There will be another Being Good at Doing Good conference on February 13 and 14, 2012 organized by the Charity Law Information Program - you don’t want to miss this conference. We will have some of the top experts from Canada, the US and the UK on governance, financial management and compliance. Here is the registration page: http://www.clipconference.wildapricot.org/ The conference is “Doing Good” at registrations with over 205 people signed up so far. Here is the Preliminary Conference Schedule
January 2012
Here is the Blumbergs’ Canadian Charity Law List - January 2012
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Alice Holt, the Head of Legal Services for the London office of the Charity Commission of England and Wales will be speaking at CLIP “Being Good at Doing Good” Conference in Toronto, which is being held February 13 and 14. We are delighted to have Alice join us.
Ken Berger, the President & Chief Executive Officer, of the US charity watch dog group Charity Navigator will speaking at the CLIP conference “Being Good at Doing Good” on the subject of “The Battle for Transparency in the Non-Profit Sector”.
Lois G. Lerner, the Director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the Internal Revenue Service will be speaking at the Charity Law Information Program (CLIP) Conference “Being Good at Doing Good” in Toronto, which is taking place on February 13 and 14th. http://www.clipconference.wildapricot.org/ As head of the Exempt Organizations Division she is responsible for the regulation of US charities or exempt organizations including registration, education, and compliance. She will be giving two presentations - one focusing on why regulators care about governance and the second on top compliance issues for US charities. We will also have speakers from the CRA and Charity Commission of England and Wales and other experts in charity governance, financial controls and compliance.
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Avoiding 'Charity' Scams
The Toronto Star’s Investigative Reporter Kevin Donovan, who frequently covers the charitable sector, will be presenting at the Charity Law Information Program (CLIP) conference “Being Good at Doing Good”. Increasingly the media has been focusing on charities and certain hot button issues. Those involved with charity governance, financial management and communications will find his comments very useful.
There has been a little political firestorm last week over US foundations funding of certain Canadian environmental charities. So how much revenue actually comes to Canada from foreign countries including the US? The answer seems to be about $831 million. That is from Line 4575 “Total revenue received from all sources outside Canada”. If you are interested in who got what then read on.
On December 21, 2011 the Department of Finance announced a consultation on “updating Canada’s regime for combating money laundering and terrorist financing.” They also put out a consultation paper, “Strengthening Canada’s Anti-Money Laundering and Anti‑Terrorist Financing Regime,” which contains a number of proposals, a couple of which relate to charities. The deadline for submitting comments is March 1, 2012. The two proposals relating to charities are pretty minor - first for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to share information with CRA Charities Directorate on seizure reports when they seize forfeited currency. Second, the Financial Transactions Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (“Fintrac”) already provides disclosure to CRA but such disclosure may be more proactive. These recommendations will facilitate the Charities Directorate having greater awareness of potential money laundering or terrorist activities that could potentially involve charities.
In a Globe and Mail article entitled “Foes of Northern Gateway pipeline fear revocation of charitable status” there is a discussion of recent issues raised about foreign funding on Canadian charities and political activities of Canadian charities.
Here is a copy of a recent presentation on CRA’s Foreign Activity Guidance.
Minister of International Cooperation, Bev Oda, announced on December 23, 2011 the results of the Call for Proposals process of the Partnerships with Canadian branch. 53 organizations received about $142 million in total commitments.
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Here is an interesting article on transparency in the Chinese charitable sector. “Charities will lose public credibility without transparency,” said one researcher. It is interesting to note that in one scandal involving the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC), the ” the scandal led to an 86.6-percent drop in donations to national charity organizations over the following six months”. It appears that the Chinese government is taking steps to bring in greater transparency.
December 2011
The CRA just put out a press release entitled “The Canada Revenue Agency revokes the charitable status of the Canadian Foundation for Tamil Refugee Rehabilitation”.
November 2011
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The Toronto Star has written about a Canadian charity named HEDAC in an article entitled “Toronto charity goes from zero to $60M in a year”
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 11/12/2011 |
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Here is a program we are putting on entitled “Trends in U.S.-based Global Grantmaking” with Andrew Ho of the US Council on Foundations. [update below]
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It seems that the Australians are also suffering from some of the tax schemes that have plagued Canada. The Australian Tax Office notes “Examples of tax schemes Tax schemes often involve a series of complex transactions. They may also involve distorting the way funds are being used to enable you to claim deductions you are not entitled to. The following examples might not seem like tax schemes on the surface, but getting involved could be costly.
Inflated tax deductions for donation of goods to charity - A promoter may claim you can make a charitable donation and obtain a tax deduction for an amount that is significantly greater than the actual cash amount you outlay.”
October 2011
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I will be presenting on Partnering with Charities for Effective CSR.
Here is a copy of the Blumbergs Canadian Charity Law List - October 2011. To sign up and receive monthly updates go to http://www.canadiancharitylaw.ca/index.php/pages/subscribe/
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According to the Globe and Mail “Canadians contributed $70-million to East Africa famine relief, a figure that will be matched by the Harper government. This brings the total government response to $142-million – $70-million in matching funds and $72.35-million that was provided earlier for humanitarian efforts in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, where more than 13 million people are affected by a devastating drought.” The matching funds are provided to Canadian charities that have the best plans and experience to operate in the region, not necessarily the organization that raised the most funds.
In 2009, according to the CRA and its T3010 data, Canadian charities spent 2.9 billion outside of Canada.
September 2011
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Here is an interesting report involving a UK charity with many lessons that can be learned by Canadian charities. The UK charity raised money for the Tsunami in 2004 and the Pakistan earthquake in 2005. In 2006 there were allegations in the media that the UK charity was involved with supporting terrorism. Charity Commission of UK and Wales spent a number of year investigating. “The Inquiry concluded that from the information examined, there was no evidence to indicate that the trustees diverted charitable funds for unlawful or non-charitable purposes. However, the Commission concluded that the trustees were unable to satisfactorily verify the end use of charitable funds in both Indonesia and Pakistan. It found that the measures taken to control, monitor and document the use of charitable funds by third parties overseas were insufficient. This prevented the charity’s trustees from being able to demonstrate that those funds had been used legitimately and in furtherance of the charity’s purposes.” “The report provides various lessons for the wider charity sector which trustees are encouraged to read. The lessons include the steps which trustees should take to put safeguards in place to mitigate the risk of charitable funds being used unlawfully. This is particularly important for charities working overseas and potentially working through partners. The report provides important advice on trustee responsibilities in financial management and the supervision of overseas activities, and the importance of charities having effective governance where all trustees are aware of their responsibilities in terms of setting polices, decision making, and ensuring the charity is run in line with its governing document and general law.”
Posted by
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On September 20, 2011 Prime Stephen Harper announced a list of projects that will receive funding under the Muskoka Initiative Partnership Program.
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Here is a short article quoting Brad Pitt on why he gives to charity. It is quite interesting.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy has published a lengthy article by Caroline Preston entitled “Multiple Methods of Valuing Drugs Create an Unclear Picture of Aid Totals”. It covers a number of important issues for both Canadian and US charities who either receive pharmaceutical donations or who purchase pharmaceuticals to use in developing nations.
Here is a note on “Which Universities Outside of Canada are prescribed universities under Schedule VIII of the Income Tax Act (Canada) and therefore qualified donees?”
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has updated “Attachment to IC84-3R, Gifts to Certain Charitable Organizations Outside Canada” to add The Rhodes Trust – Public Purposes Fund based in the UK. This is effective as of December 15, 2010.
I will be delivering with Guillermo Correa of RACI-Red Argentina para la Cooperación Internacional a workshop on capacity building at the CIVICUS World Assembly conference in Montreal looking at the Argentinean and Canadian examples.
August 2011
Here is a CRA note on what is a qualified donee. If you are involved with governance or management of a charity it is important to understand what is a qualified donee because registered charities can make gifts to qualified donees but registered charities cannot make gifts to “non-qualified donees”. If a registered charity makes a gift to a non-qualified donee it could faces penalties and revocation. After the CRA guidance below I have placed a link to some helpful resources that relate to qualified donees that are working with groups that are not qualified donees in both Canada and also abroad.
