Tony’s guests this week:
Mindy Aleman, executive director of the Center for Gift and Estate Planning at Kent State University
Tanya Howe Johnson, president and CEO of the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning
Gene Takagi & Emily Chan of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group
Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://mpgadv.com
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Metoo hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio march thirty, two thousand twelve big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent i’m your aptly named host i sincerely hope you’re with me. Last week, it would hurt me deeply if you had missed to twitter chat hosts on twitter talk we had pamela grow of small non-profit chat and brendan kinney of fundchat both on twitter tell us how these one hundred forty character conversations i can help you non-profit and build your professional network and push it. Maria simple, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder, explained how push technology much of it free khun support your fund-raising this week planned gift prospects by phone. Mindy allen of kent state university takes the role of professor to teach you how to identify planned e-giving prospects from your phone based fund-raising very unusual, but she’s been doing it for years with great success and that’s pre recorded at the national conference on philanthropic planning this year, tanya says farewell to p p pee that’s tanya how johnson she sat with me at that same conference last year, the partnership for philanthropic planning conference to say goodbye to that. Organization that she has lead for twenty years, she retires this next month. April and finally today, cockney complexities our legal contributors jean takagi and emily chan from the non-profit and exempt organizations law group look at legal issues around the viral kony twenty twelve video it’s gotten eighty six million views and we’re going to look at it from an angle that you have not yet seen. I hope you will stay with me right now. Oh, and i’ve forget about it. I’m all screwed up. I also have course tony’s take two this week on tony’s take to my blogged one fact about planned e-giving i’ll tell you what it is and why that fact should be reassuring to you use hashtag non-profit radio if you want to join the conversation through twitter, i’m very grateful that the show is supported by g grace corporate real estate services. Now is the time to say that we’re going to take a break, and when we return, i’ll have the pre recorded interview planned gift prospects by phone with mindy element from kent state university, so stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s a lawrence h bloom two, one, two, nine, six, four, three, five zero two. We make people happy. Hey, are you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the national conference on philanthropic planning. We’re on the river walk in san antonio, texas, and my guest right now is mindy element. She is executive director of the center for gift and a state planning at kent state university in kent, ohio. She is a c f ar e and an a p r i’m going to ask her what those mean very shortly. Mindy, welcome to the show. Thank you, tony. Nice to be here. A pleasure to have you see fr ee i know is certified fund-raising executive. But what is the a p r after your name designation? I’m also accredited in public relations by the national public relations society. Okay, how do you feel? You used your public relations credential in your gift planning work all the time. Thanks. Oh, yeah, absolutely. How is that? Tell me you’re building a story. You’re building a case for your institution. You’re crafting the proper message. And you’re thinking about the audience and that’s all about public relations as well as planned. Nothing. All right. Excellent. Thank you. Mindy, your your topic is harnessed. Phone center. Power to increase plant. Gif ts now, i don’t think that most of our audience and the audience is small and mid sized non-profits think of their phone center as a place to prospect planned e-giving donors. So why are you recommending that? Well, tony it’s really a gold mine? Four future plan gifts and for requests that are undocumented there, unbeknownst to the organisation and for many reasons may not be known until after the donorsearch passes away. Okay, and we can uncover these gif ts through our phone work. Absolutely. Okay, most of the time and we use students in our phone center. But any well trained, personable rapport building phone center caller could do that. Okay, well, that’s kind of a mouthful now, so it sounds like, do you? Ah, you do you stay away from or recommend against? I guess the hired tell of a telephone tell us solicitors for for annual fund. I don’t recommend against it. I think it takes a little bit different training. The reason student callers or callers who are involved in the organization’s mission are very efficient and effective is because they bring a sense of doing it now to their phone conversations and particularly with universities, a student is best at developing a nice report with an alumnus who may have gotten a degree in business, and the student is majoring in business and khun se gi, do you have any advice for me? I’m having a tough time with the international business ethics class, okay, so they can develop that report that profession schnoll consultant solicitor is not going is not going to do it’s it’s a unique relationship between the student and the donor on the other end of the line that if your phone centers very successful getting gifts, it’s, because they’re developing report, that same report is very successful and into girl in terms of identifying those who might also put your institution in there will all right? And we’re going to get to those to those details. Let’s set the stage at kent state now as executive director of the center for gift in a state planning you probably don’t oversee the annual fund telemarketing function, right? You’re you’re working with another office in this, okay, you have a good working relationship, i guess. Absolutely. And this truly is a nice example of a collaborative effort. And buy-in between the plan giving area and the annual fund program, how did you discover the potential in the annual fund telemarketing work for your gift planning work? Well, we had been very successful at our annual fund. We were raising a lot of money and the annual fund was breaking all kinds of records. So we knew at the time that we had a very great program in place. During the same time, we had a screening, and the screening had uncovered about twenty seven thousand prospects who had a high proclivity for making a plan gift to our organisation. This was a screening by an outside company, one of the one of well screening cos yes, and i could mention the company if you don’t, if you like your blackbaud and they did a wonderful job for strip. And the dilemma that we found ourselves in was well, how the heck are we going to get to talk to twenty seven thousand? Likely plan giving prospects? How many people are in the center for gift in the state planning at the university? Well, there’s, only a couple of us plus our administrative support. However, we have another fifteen to twenty full time gift officers representing different constituencies. However, they are mostly major gift officers. So we had what we call in this area. Lack of legs. Okay, twenty seven thousand people. What? What did you decide to do? Well, we thought maybe we could piggyback onto the successes of our phone center who were talking to thousands of alumni every week. And maybe we could take the best of those callers, give them a specific pool comprised of the ones with the highest blackbaud ratings in the plan giving area and ask them to discuss whether the the donor ever had any intention or thought of remembering their in their alma mater in their estate plan. Your colleague who oversees the annual fund wasn’t concerned that this would buddy the message and that the annual fund solicitation might get lost in there for the annual fund income suffer well, no, because we we decided up front that this pg ask, as we called it pgs, peachy ass, actually, what? It was really mostly a plan giving conversation, segway. But that would only occur number one if they were in the plan. Good e-giving phone calling. Pool number one and number two, if the person called, had made a gift or a pledge so it didn’t interfere it all. It came afterwards, okay? And had made a gift or a pledge in that in that call. That’s? Correct. Okay. And what do you call this program, ken state? We call it, request a request. All right, but you’re not really soliciting a bequest. You’re you’re asking if there’s ah, an interest in it is that is that right? Yes. But, you know that’s where there it’ll starts and it’s a nice segue way. If somebody has been donating for years and they’re in the right demographics for plan giving it’s very natural and easy for the student caller to say, you know, mr jones, you’ve been so wonderful all these years. And i certainly appreciate your gift tonight to the school of music. Have you ever considered including us in your state plan? All right. And what was the initial response to that? How many years have you been doing this request? A bequest. This has been going on since two thousand five. So it’s in its about six and a half years, i guess. Right? I guess we’ll clearly the answer is, the initial reaction was not negative, and i guess positive. So you continued for the for several years after it’s been wonderful, tony, it really has not only have we identified hundreds of people who would consider a bequest, but we’ve also uncovered many people with with requests or other plan gives already in there a state plan and the most the fat, most fabulous part of all of this is that many of these donors we’re not on our radar screen. Well, they were in the twenty seven thousand because but they were not on your plan to give prospect radar screens that right, right? And they were yes, they they were unbeknownst to us in terms of whether they would really do something or not. So it really pushed the meter in terms of identifying really good plan giving prospects. And as we all know in the world, the plan giving many current gifts can come from plan giving donors as well. So is the language that the students are using. Is that is that what you gave us earlier? Would you consider or have you ever considered share, including okay, and and there are. Other options as well, let’s, say there was somebody that said, well, i can only make a small gift this year. Tony too. The department of physics. I wish i could do more, but i could only give you a small gift. The collar then was empowered and trained to say, well, i hear your passion in your voice. Maybe you could just put us in your will. And you would be surprised and pleased. I would think, to find out that many people said, you know what? I’m going to go ahead and do them that’s really something you’ve uncovered something really very, very interesting. Thank you. Yeah. Great. Now, your program description says that this is an award winning program requested request. What? What award or awards? Everyone. This particular program has been the recipient of four different case awards. Three golds in terms of best overall program. Best plan giving can cases the council for advancement in support of education. Yes, yes. And it also meant a lot because we we received an award for collaboration. And it truly was a nice effort between our phone center manager, the annual fund director, my my department in a range of other folks, including the major gift officers, because for many of them, they ended up receiving nice leads. If somebody was assigned and indicated they might consider putting tens in their will, then the particular advancement officer was encouraged to go to follow-up so we’ve raised millions of dollars duitz and gifts and pledges through this program over the years, clearly a collaboration between three different three different areas of fund-raising so how did you select the callers who were who would receive the enhanced training? Teo teo participate in request of a quest i depended on the phone center coordinators in the end, the managers to provide me with their very best callers, those that had a great track record in securing gifts, those that had a really passion and joy for the institution and those who were just great on the phone, particularly for older adults who may not want to talk at certain times during the day, or who have hearing issues and so on. So just in terms of the person’s volume on the phone, absolutely right, okay, volume being able to enunciate properly, our collars went through all kinds of training, including gerontology. Expert who came in and talked about issues that older adults face and things like sundown ing, which means that we wanted some of these calls to go out earlier than six p m okay, so training by jared atallah gist yes, what other training did the these specialized colors get? They had a range of basic plan giving options so that they understood the difference between a simple will bequest and let’s say of retained income gift. Okay, but nothing so technical that they were inhibited or overwhelmed or felt like they didn’t want any part of this, and they knew to be able to refer those to me and oftentimes i was there during the calling, listening in, okay? No, they’re helping out of being around that’s a part of call center training is listening surreptitiously. Yeah, um, so they were just opening the conversation. And isn’t that what we trained? A lot of major gift officers to do? I i spoke with someone earlier talking about breaking down the silos mean, so this is just an extension of what what i think is that conversation breaking down the seller’s between plan giving in major e-giving you’re just including students from the annual fund call center. The important thing about having conversations with people and getting to the core issues is being able to elicit trust for yourself from that person and whether it’s, a student caller or a major gift officer, the person on the other end of the phone could be made to feel so comfortable that they want to talk more and believe it or not, if we’re not asking for will’s, we’re not doing our job because every other charities out there doing the same, and in all these years of calling and in the thousands of people who have been called and followed up on, we have never gotten one case of somebody saying, how dare you ask me that? That is so inappropriate? And most people were thrilled to know you know what? What a great idea! I ought to include my alma mater in my will. Never not one complaint, not one complaint. Okay, well, you’ve screened the people who would be part of this, the in terms of the the prospects, and also highly trained, the caller’s it’s all done very sensitively and appropriately to the right, poole and never a single complaint. Excellent. Um, follow-up is critical to any solicitation or conversation of this type would what’s the follow-up this is really, i think, the key factor of this program you can’t do or launch some kind of program without proper follow-up because nothing is worse than a student coming back to your office ing wow, somebody just told us they’re they’re leading fifty thousand dollars in their will for us, and then we don’t call them for a year. I mean, that’s, that’s critical. So the follow-up has to be done with as much enthusiasm and passion, and what i decided to do was work with our data base folks and code these different calls. If somebody was just considering including us in their will, they were coded as a cb, considering a bequest. They got a letter from their student caller thanking them for considering and telling them it was nice to speak with them, and it was actually signed by that student. They also got a letter from me thanking them for considering and if they requested, information included information and so on. So there was there were a number of follow-up procedures and protocol that we were very, very religious on, he should say in terms of following of the the way to what the person wanted to receive all the way to giving them a call maybe six months to a year later, saying, you know, you know, mrs jones, you had one time thought about including us in your will would it be helpful to you of somebody from our office took you to coffee to discuss or would you like some more information? Okay, so that is a part of the follow-up six months or a year later. Yes. Yeah. What’s your preference for follow-up to someone who has said in one of these calls, you know, i’ve already included you in my will, which certainly has happened. Do you then request documentation or request that they fill out a simple form? Or is their word sufficient for you to include them in your recognition society? Well, after we send out the balloons and all the party favors to their house, yeah, we’ve really simplified it over the years. We do not request a copy of their documentation. However we do ask that they give us something in writing to specify their instructions, and it could be in using our simple form that we that we offer that helps them, or it could be in the form of an email or a note saying, dear can state, i’d i’d like my funds to go to the kent state university museum, for instance, so with that latto we, we include them as a member of our legacy society, and they get all kinds of acknowledgment there after it’s also the beginning of another conversation where we can say, you know, depending on how much is it comes to fruition at you could create a permanent endowment, and we can we can help you with that as well. And what what are you thinking there in terms of permanent damage? What type of gift are you tryingto encourage them to? This is simply where, if there’s sufficient funds through there, a st gift right now, endowments on the ken campus or twenty five thousand? Ok, so in other words, if they’re going to leave us at a minimum of twenty five thousand, we would like them to know that they have an opportunity to have a permanent impact at the institution with there area of interest could go. On teo in perpetuity, the program is requested. Request it’s at kent state university, and i’ve been talking to mindy ah lemon, who is the executive director of the center for gift and estate planning at the university, talking about harnessing your phone center power to increase plant gifts. Many element, thank you very much for being a guest. Thank you, tony. Been a real pleasure. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the national conference on philanthropic planning in san antonio, texas two thousand eleven. The attendant think dick tooting getting stinking thing. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, get anything. E-giving you could are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading. Learn how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Lively conversation. Top trends. Sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m samantha cohen from the american civil liberties union. Welcome back now i have my interview from that same conference last year, last october with tanya how johnson and hears that. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the national conference on philanthropic planning, hosted by the partnership for philanthropic planning. We’re in san antonio, texas, and i’m very pleased to have with me the president and ceo of the partnership for philanthropic planning. Tanya. How johnson she’s going to be retiring in april of next year, two thousand twelve, after twenty years as president and ceo tanya welcome. Thank you. And thanks for having me, it’s. A pleasure to be here. A pleasure to be a sponsor and partner with the with the conference and with the partnership. No, this must be a pretty emotional time for you. It’s. The last conference. What would you say that of your presidency? Not certainly not of the of the organization of your presidency and chief executive officer ship. What are you feeling, it’s? A very bittersweet time. I have to admit, i’ve had twenty great years. I love this organization. I love all of the people that i’ve worked with, its bin a wonderful opportunity for me to give. Back to philanthropy and give back in some way to those people who have been important to me all my life from charitable organizations, so i’m very sad to leave. I’m excited about having one more career before i really retire, and i’m looking forward to exploring what those options are and hopefully staying in touch with everyone here. Of course, what do you have in mind for that next career? Well, what i’m telling everybody is that i’m going to write a tell all book that’ll scare them nobody’s gonna keep in touch with you then, but it’s too late. You already know it all all these years, i keep saying, i’m going to remember this, so no, actually, i haven’t made a definite decision yet. I’m exploring a number of options, okay? And leaving the window open and i hope by january i’ll have an announcement to make, okay? Okay, we’ll look forward to that, and i’m sure that will be on the website because people do want to get in touch with yes, absolutely so this is probably going to be on the partnerships website. Do you want to say a farewell something that is fitting for? Your imminent retirement well, i don’t know if i could say anything that was really fitting for my retirement, but i will be making some remarks later this afternoon here at the conference and will be video taping those, and so hopefully we’ll have a chance to get those out to members. It would be nice to be able to say a personal goodbye to everyone and and that’s, not really possible, but i hope through the magic of technology that we can do that, so i thank you for this opportunity as well. It’s been a pleasure on dh, thank you and congratulations. Thank you, tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the national conference on philanthropic planning. Right now, we take a break when we return. Tony’s, take two, one fact about planned e-giving and then after that, i’ll be joined by our legal contributors, jean takagi and emily chan, with kony complexities. Stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed and the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com welcome back, it’s, time for tony’s, take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour. My block this week is one fact about planned e-giving that fact is it’s a relationship business? People often get bogged down and i think even discouraged ged from starting a plan giving program because they think about technical concerns and needs for expertise, or sometimes people who already have programs get bogged down in administrative work. If you’re starting a program, you don’t need technical fancy advanced gift offerings to have a very solid and very respectable planned giving program, and that is, should be reassuring too small and midsize charities it’s just not necessary. You start with requests, which is a gift in someone’s will those air very simple for you to promote and for your prospects to understand, and you don’t need to go any further in a lot of cases. That’s, a very respectable program for small and midsize shop, just marketing and promoting charitable bequests and on my block this week in that post called one fact about planned e-giving there are links on how to get started because i did a series of articles for guide star they’re links to those articles explaining how you start a program just around charitable bequests. So the one fact about planned giving is that it’s a relationship business you don’t need fancy technical administrative stuff and it’s easy to get started just with requests, that is all at tony martignetti dot com and that’s tony’s take two for friday, march thirtieth, the thirteenth show of two thousand twelve now i have with me jean takagi and emily chan are you guys out there? Way are hi tony money. Hello, how are you joining me from san francisco and the non-profit and exempt organizations law group is jean takagi he’s, the principal of neo, and he edits the popular blogger at non-profit law block dot com on twitter he is at gi tak g ta ke emily chan is an attorney at the non-profit exempt organizations law group and principal contributor to the non-profit law blawg, and she is at emily chan on twitter. And emily chan just recently wanted a big, prestigious national fancy award. Won’t you tell us? Emily thanks, honey. M it is an award from the business law section non-profit organizations committee with the american bar association for us outstanding young lawyer i’m really honored and thankful to gene for making the nomination. All right. And that’s not just a san francisco or california award right attracted the national. Alright, congratulations. Thank you, jean takagi. If you don’t win an award within the next month, next time you supposed to be on the show, you’re you’re out! I think i’m already reporting family, so all right, so but that includes bowling trophies. If you can come home and come in with a bowling trophy between now and the next show, you’re still you’ll still be on. We’re going to talk about kony complexities, let’s see jean, why don’t you remind us what the cockney video is? Because there may be people who haven’t heard of it yet although eighty six million have, we may have listeners who are not among those eighty six million what’s the what’s, this cockney video and what is invisible children kony two thousand twelve, with a short thirty minutes video created by invisible children, was released earlier this month on as you said, tony, eighty six million views on you two, not including all of the views on coney or invisible children’s own. Website and other websites that have picked up the video. So it’s, a huge movement to promote invisible children’s mission to stop ugandan warm and war criminal, uh, who’s, draconian the kony two thousand twelve. It refers to joseph kony who’s brutal guerrilla warfare tactics with the lord’s resistance army or l r a in regions of central africa, particularly northern uganda. Uh includes the strategy of kidnapping children and using them soldiers for his efforts often, uh, using them to kill their own parents. So it’s, just a really, uh, atrocious were criminal out there that invisible children has targeted the video because it was so popular has caused sort of all about what caused a lot of conversation on both sides people in favor of and opposed teo the work of invisible children. And i think a good amount of envy that that that video got so widely distributed. Gene, there are some legal issues that that you and emily see what? Why don’t you get us started with this is thought about this us charity and its international work? Sure, i think that’s a good place to start first, there is the question about whether an american charity can get involved in international programming on having activities overseas. Well, there’s nothing in federal law that would prohibit a u s organisation five, twenty three public charity from engaging in international operations. But of course the organization would have to comply with the laws of that foreign jurisdiction. And in this case, invisible children has an affiliated organization. Invisible children ngo that was formed in central africa on is kind of a partner in their programming over there. So invisible children, public charity, the us public charity engages in grantmaking to the ugandan ngo that’s related on de emily that that foreign grantmaking that’s that could be a concern. Yes, absolutely similar to the same kind of concerns that we have domestically about the use of five to one say, three assets. This concerns certainly becomes more complicated and maybe more severe when we’re talking about money going abroad. Um and so the level of control and oversight on the due diligence that an organization is doing to make sure that money is used properly, something that any organization with foreign grantmaking should be aware of and take care of, okay, and and what are those? What are? The concerns i mean, what are the tests that we’re looking at for whether the grantmaking is is appropriate abroad? Well, they’re quite a handful of tests, so to start on a basic level, any of the five o one c three rules still applied to foreign operations, so concerns about inappropriate benefit to insiders to private individuals for being used for purposes outside of the exempt purpose of the organization, which again must still be consistent with our domestic five twenty three regulations, but also so so so so the so the irs is arm extends beyond just us borders. If you’re a u s five twenty three, your international work is governed by the same constraints as you’re us grantmaking yeah, parts of it work, and i will have, you know, two bodies essentially or more than it may be reporting to you because it is a us non-profit so it does have to comply with u s laws but speaks touch now, it’s getting involved in a foreign country now, you also have to look at the foreign country and figure out what rules would apply as well. So another concern with this grantmaking assad for individual teo donate teo a public charity while that money can be used abroad, it cannot be earmarked to go abroad. I can’t not be earmarked to go to a specific individual, and this is consistent with the same kind of rules you see domestically were again, it can’t be earmarked. Go to specific individuals to get that charitable deduction on. And it goes back to that level of control and discretion that domestic non-profit should have to make sure that it’s actually using the money and further and it’s exempt purposes, and following through with that money to make sure that it’s being used properly by the recipients do we know how much money, um, invisible children was devoting. Teo er non us grantmaking. Yeah, i believe gene has the statistic on hand. Sure. It’s it’s about two point three million dollars in their two thousand ten form nine. Ninety that was reported going towards there. Foreign ngo. Okay, i wanted teo just sort of ad tio empoli comments about not earmarking donations to foreign individuals, but that would also include foreign ngos. If you as a donor, earmark your donation to us charity and say it must go to a specific foreign ngo you will not get a deductible contribution, and the charity will not really be operating consistent with it. Uh, legal requirements toe exercise oversight over that if they’re just merely acting as a conduit. So those things for donors and cherries to be careful of. So in other words, gene, invisible children can’t say up front that it’s going to make grants to i don’t know, you know, some you ugandan grassroots organization, they can’t do that. They say that the donations that they receive are specifically going there. They say that one of the recipients is that ngo okay, okay, um was there i’m sorry i interrupted you. Was there another point you wanted to make about this international grantmaking sure, i just wanted to make sure that everyone was aware that they’re anti terrorism laws that also may apply on us what policy? So you’ve got to be careful of making sure that you’re not acting against us public policy in your porn grantmaking okay, now, that’s just in the grantmaking so that wouldn’t apply to the video that they had done, right, that it wouldn’t matter whether that position against joseph kony was against us policy, right? It actually could matter-ness just okay. All right, how’s that well, if you’re using a charitable funds for which organ donors got deductions for and for which you are not paying taxes can’t use those funds to promote, for example, racial discrimination because that’s against us public policy and that’s true, whether you do it domestically or abroad. Ok. All right, so so, eh? So if the u s had a policy of supporting joseph kony just hypothetically, then they then then invisible children would have trouble with the video that they just produced. Is that right? If they used if they use charitable funds for it that’s that’s, right. Okay. Okay. Just a hypothetical. I don’t know. It’s a law school, hypothetical man, i know you guys were rolling your eyes in san francisco, but i’m amusing myself. So actually something else. Do i wantedto arika with grantmaking that gene and i were discussing recently about the relationship that’s happening here with invisible children of domestic non-profit and grantmaking teo ngo. So, emily, you and jean sit around the office and talk about these things. Do let’s expect that’s? Incredible that’s. I love that. Okay. Well, i mean, that’s what that’s, what lawyers working for non-profits ought to be doing is just yeah, it’s good to hear good years, not just with me. You guys share share information offline. Outstanding. Okay? Whenever a story like this comes out, we do think there’s always lessons to be learned and takeaways, especially when it gets so much attention on. So one interesting fact that jean notice what grantmaking is to an ngo by the same name, invisible children abroad. So this is the organization that was set up essentially in another country. And we’re just thinking from the perspective of an organization that if there is let’s, say hi overlap between the individuals running the domestic non-profit and then the recipient ngo abroad, that maybe the level of discretion that you used on the due diligence on the information you put out let’s, say with your annual reports or your filings, or even on your website, you may want to pursue a higher level of that two again show that there is a step in between the two and it’s not just becoming a conduit, essentially, or collapsing into the same group of people and you discovered this we have just about a minute before break you discovered this or jean discovered it on the nine, ninety. Yeah, essentially that that’s. Right. So, on the nine, ninety, they report they’re grantmaking teo, invisible children, the ngo, but we don’t know very much about invisible children, the ngos. So wait three million went that way. How did they spend their money? And you know what type of due diligence is there that’s not really available to us or the irs, unless they decide to audit the organization. But you are saying that that invisible children has an office in uganda and not invisible children, the us public charity. They formed a ugandan ngo, central african ngo teo teo, okay, and it’s also called invisible children correct. I understand, okay, we’re gonna take a break. When we come back. We’ll keep talking about kony complexities, so stay with me in this crack legal award winning team. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit, you’ll hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. Oh, this is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting. Are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment, be more effective be happier and make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Told you. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio gene. Before the break, we were talking about the international of the ugandan ngo invisible children and the us invisible children. It sounds like your advice is is just really that there has to be separation between the two, similar to a charity that is in the us and maybe its foundation fund-raising arm. Also here in the u s is there a parallel there? Well, most most charities have their fund-raising arms within the legal entity of the charity itself. There are some organizations that separate out there fund-raising units like an endowment is a separate corporation for risk management purposes and asset protection. So the separation that you’re talking about for those reasons, is similar to what a u s charity and a foreign related nto would need to do with. Well, yeah. Okay. This is this is really some crack forensic work that you guys did finding this in the nine. Ninety. Very interesting. And then, of course, nine nineties all publicly available. Right? That emily, is there another topic you want to? You want to talk about with respect? To the invisible children that we also in looking at the nine, ninety found some interesting information about the progression or, i guess, evolution of the organization’s mission. And again, this is all coming from this publicly available annual information return on, we see that this is all from guidestar, which gives you about the three most current years. In two thousand eight, we see a pretty broad description of the organization’s mission in part three of the nine, ninety, which focuses on program i’m activities, which basically says it’s media based awareness and advocacy provoc grams in the us, we see that in two thousand nine that it now becomes more specific, stating that it’s about raising awareness and education in the us about atrocities, exploitation and abuse is invisible children throughout the world here, now we see a focus on invisible children, and then in the most recent filing available from two thousand ten, we actually see it become even more specific where it says that invisible children uses film, creativity and social action toe and the use of children, soldiers and joseph tony’s rebel war and restore l r et affected communities in central africa to peace and prosperity. So again, even more focused, yeah, so what’s the impact of these changes over three years, there’s quite there could be many impact from this. The first is that one question someone would have is whether this is consistent with their governing documents, because, again, this is an information return. So even if the mission has one thing, you really have to look to your articles of incorporation and those documents to see what actually what purpose you’re supposed to be furthering. So with those documents, the articles of incorporation and the mission statement within them have to have been updated and become more specific from year to year, the way the nine, ninety reports that did they absolutely should, for a couple of reasons, one is, you know, the articles of incorporation are not really accessible to the public. I mean, you’d have to request them. You’d have to be a certain person in the organization, possibly get that information. So for one, communication with donors is very important. Um, and you’re funders into the public, and you would want that to mirror your governing documents in any kind of public information. You have another issue more. Legal issue has to do with the use of your charitable assets that you received so there’s a concept called charitable trust doctrine, which essentially says that the assets you received azzan organization are locked into the mission that you have at the time that you get those so if, for example, in two thousand eight, it has very actually no let’s focus on the two thousand ten right, the most specific two thousand ten, the most specific year, right? And then let’s say in the next year they’re going toe they’re going change it again just in their own internal understanding of how they want their mission to be on, and they’re going to focus on the new region unless they’ve amended their governing documents, even if internally they believe now they’re focusing on a new area under their state shirt will trust doctor, and they were not probably cannot use those assets that are being received. After internally, they decided to make a change to this new focus. What saying another country it’s still going to be locked into this joseph kony rubble war, right? Because because that money was raised in two thousand ten, which was their charitable purpose at that at the time it was raised, right? Interesting god. And so this is just important for organizations to know we seen this, you know, in other cases where an organization has decided internally, it evolved it’s starting to change its focus, but it hasn’t changed its governing documents. And so all the assets that’s receiving are locked into that mission that is still stated in their governing documents. So this is very important for organizations tio check their governing documents also because they’re there for a reason that really helps guide the organization. And why don’t you just remind us, emily, what are those governing documents? Articles of incorporation general will be the most important and then there’s also your by-laws which could be more specific than your articles that this all would play into germany. What your mission, wass i’m and then also just looking at your information return. So the nine, ninety things that you put on your website that can go to misrepresentation with donors on other issues like that, if it’s not consistent and people are donating under a belief of where it’s going, that is actually something that the organization can do yes. Okay. All right. This was a really interesting forensic work. Really? Are you guys going tobe log about this? Yeah, i think so. You know, i’ve been thinking about this week’s show and having this discussion. I think a lot of interesting topics have come out from it that we absolutely would want teo make available to everyone. Okay, well, if you block it, then let us know, and we’ll put the link, of course, on the show’s facebook page. All right, wey have to leave it there. Emily chan and jian takagi, prince attorney and principal respectively, of neo. The non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. Thanks both for your time. Always a pleasure. Next week, campaign feasibility studies. If we can have fun with this topic, then there’s no stopping twenty martignetti non-profit radio eugenia cologne, a consultant in that area of campaign feasibility studies. Makes sense of what their value is and what the best practices are. And if you know something that rhymes with feasibility, please put that on the facebook page. I want to thank you. Mindy holloman, tanya how johnson and the folks at the partnership for philanthropic planning. For all their work and helping me to be a media sponsor for their conference last year and get those interviews to you that we played today and special thanks to gloria cur mean, at the partnership for those of you who are listening to the podcast, i’m speaking to both of you. Now i would love for you each of you, each of both of you to have to give a rating to the show, because right now on the itunes paige there’s so few ratings that that itunes won’t give a rating. So and actually, there are more than two of you that listen, i would beseech you to please go to itunes, are page in itunes and just click one through five stars. One means you hate it. Five means it’s great and we would love. I would be very grateful to have enough reviews that itunes feels comfortable giving us a of one through five star reading, and you can go directly to our itunes paige in itunes. Or you can go through non-profit radio dot net. The show is sponsored by g grace and company. Are you worried about the rising cost of rent for your organization, do you need a plan for real estate that you’re non-profit owns? George grace has been advising non-profits on their real estate decisions for over twenty five years. He offers listeners a complimentary thirty minute consultation. They are at g grace dot com or eight eight eight seven four seven two two three, seven. I hope you’ll be with us for the next live show on talking alternative, which is betsy cohen’s power of intuition. You don’t have to listen through the weekend, although you certainly can, because we’re streaming all time, but the next live show is monday at eleven betsey’s show. Power of intuition. Our creative producer was claire meyerhoff. Janice taylor is our line producer. The show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. 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