Category: uncategorized

text-align: right; Kate Bahen
text-align: right; May 2, 2018
Year Two Highlights: 
$2 million in new donations and/or interest earned on unspent fund balance brings total funds available for disaster response to $325 million. This is a slight increase from $323 million reported in April 2017.
$291 million “spent and committed” over the past two years compares with $244 million last year. Relative to the total funds of $325 million, Canadian Red Cross (CRC) has an additional $34 million to spend.
In Year Two, CRC spent and committed $47 million (15% of total funds). The largest areas of spending and committing in Year Two:

• $30 million to help individuals and families
• $16 million for local charities.
• $0.5 million allocated to fundraising costs. This is simply accounting, not actual spending on fundraising. CRC matches costs with spending. CRC reports $6.2 million in fundraising costs, 66% of the total $9.4 million budgeted.

2. Local charities and community partnerships: $16 million in Year 2.
In June 2016 shortly after the Fort McMurray fire, Canadian Red Cross committed $50 million to local charities and community partners to help them recover. Nearly two years on, Canadian Red Cross has granted and committed $40 million, fulfilling 80% of its pledge to date. After a slow start only granting $8.1 million before March 2017, Canadian Red Cross has accelerated its grants to local charities and organizations.
In Year Two, Canadian Red Cross granted $16 million to 26 local charities and community partners, 19 were first-time grants, 7 charities and community groups received additional grants. CRC announced a total of 29 new grants. The average grant size was $552,000, the largest average grant size yet. CRC’s donor report highlights its support of Indigenous groups. No additional information is provided on how much each charity or group received. 


Other Charity Intelligence’s reports on Fort McMurray Fire:

 the money was spent and –   – : Charity Intelligence researches Canadian charities for donors to be informed and give intelligently. Charity Intelligence’s website posts free reports on more than 700 Canadian charities, as well as in-depth primers on philanthropic sectors like Canada’s environment, cancer, and homelessness. Today over 325,000 Canadians use Charity Intelligence’s website as a go-to source for information on Canadian charities reading over 1.3 million charity reports. Through rigorous and independent research, Charity Intelligence aims to assist Canada’s dynamic charitable sector in being more transparent, accountable and focused on results.
Be Informed. Give Intelligently. Have Impact.
Charitable Registration Number: 80340 7956 RR0001 

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In February 2006, The Economist heralded a new era of giving it called philanthrocapitalism. #_edn2″ name=”_ednref2″ style=”color: #999999; 2  Baby Boomers do good giving differently. Their way is a stark contrast to rich donors of the traditional Silent Generation. The Silent Generation typically defers to authority and gives by the established rules. #_edn4″ name=”_ednref4″ style=”color: #999999; 4 A judge hears the reasons and decides if it merits an investigation. In denying Faas’ case to proceed, Morgan writes
text-align: center; ” #_edn6″ name=”_ednref6″ style=”color: #999999; 6 Transparency is the cornerstone of investing. It requires clear and meaningful financial disclosure. In vying for Baby Boomer dollars, charities bandy around business terms like ‘return on investment’ and ‘impact’. Yet charities rarely report the meaningful information an investor needs to assess such impact or returns.
It comes down to defining “meaningful transparency”. Professionals across broad industries, like lawyers, mechanics, counsellors, and engineers, provide spending breakdowns. For example, legal bills show costs like billable hours, those of partners, associates and clerks, and other costs. This is common practice. Charities are not held to this professional standard. Unless there is fraud, Morgan finds such “granular” details excessive.
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Raising more questions about misappropriated donations
Beyond financial transparency, it is unclear how Morgan’s ruling affects restricted donations. Restricted donations are very popular. Donors like giving to a particular purpose – a scholarship, a new building, even goats. Charities are keen to woo donors. Fundraisers offer specific purposes and programs as a powerful incentive to get donations. #_edn10″ name=”_ednref10″ style=”color: #999999; 10 Given these severe penalties, charities must have stringent internal controls to handle restricted donations.
According to experienced philanthropic advisor, Doug White, donations for special purposes are often misappropriated. He urges donors to “be far more diligent in tracking how their money is used. They need to hold the charity to account.” #_edn12″ name=”_ednref12″ style=”color: #999999; 12 Ontario’s Charities Accountability Act does not explicitly define this “public interest”. This is up to a judge’s discretion. Morgan refers to case law to suss out what the public interest is – and what it is not. One donor’s appeal for transparency does not merit an investigation. Public interest must be more than news headlines. #_edn14″ name=”_ednref14″ style=”color: #999999; 14 it “should not be initiated lightly. Charities …should not quickly be subjected to the disruption and expense of such an inquiry”. #_edn16″ name=”_ednref16″ style=”color: #999999; 16 In Ontario, where the Charities Accounting Act applies, 2,135,570 donors gave $3.9 billion to charity in 2016. #_edn18″ name=”_ednref18″ style=”color: #999999; 18 They have unanswered questions about how charities spend money.

Uncertainty around charity spending is undermining public confidence and support. This harms charities too. Perhaps addressing this is in the public interest.
Donors with a “bad gut-feel” about how their donation was actually spent rarely seek justice. Most stick to the upper-class code of silence about all things unpleasant.Read More

When disasters happen, Canadians ask Charity Intelligence to recommend charities that can best help. Disaster giving is one of the trickiest areas of intelligent giving: help is needed immediately, donors want to give quickly, the situation in the disaster area is unknown. Charities ask for donations, yet it is too early for even them to know how much money they will need, how they will spend it, and when. Disaster giving can epitomize “spray and pray” giving.
Years afterwards it is critically important to hold charities accountable, to read the progress reports, and critically assess how our giving was used. Did it do the most good possible? Accountability works both ways: Charity Intelligence too needs to be accountable. Did we pick the right charities?
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text-align: right; June 21, 2018
text-align: right; Kate Bahen

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This is a typical, brilliant article on the complexity of the Texas migrant issue perhaps overlooked: David Frum “Enforce the Border – Humanely: Countering Trump’s extremism with still more extremism will do no good for any principle of freedom.” The Atlantic, June 20, 2018 provides excellent background on this complex issue.

Charity Navigator’s 7 Highly Rated Charities Working For Refugees – these are mostly international charities working in countries other than the US on the worldwide issue of refugees. 
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text-align: right; Kate Bahen
text-align: left; Doug White, author of Abusing Donor Intent: The Robertson Family’s Epic Lawsuit Against Princeton University, offers donor advice when making restricted gifts. White is well-versed as a philanthropic advisor; he is a former professor, teaching a Masters in Fundraising at Columbia University, and won the 1996 Association of Fundraising Professionals research award.
White cautions that the boiler plate donor agreements prepared by charities are intentionally ambiguous so that “nothing actionable” can ever take place. White urges donors to be far more diligent in tracking how their money is used. They need to hold the charity to account.
White recommends donors considering restricted gifts have a written legal gift agreement. This gift agreement should provide the following:

• Give clear legal standing, designating someone to enforce the gift’s provisions as well as fund the likely expenses of enforcement.
• Build into the gift agreement a procedure to permit variance. Circumstances change. As with the March of Dimes to find a cure for polio, if the purpose of the gift needs to be changed, expanded, or revised, how can this be agreed upon rather than funds simply diverted? Set up how the gift can be modified without resorting to the courts invoking the legal finding of cy press.
• Establish in the agreement clear expectations, measurable outcomes and results. Donors and charities must be on the same page. Select mutually agreed interim milestones and performance metrics to objectively assess the gift’s performance.

Disputes typically focus on money and spending. Too often, the charity’s expectation of financial reports is more general than the specific information a donor desires. Financial reporting needs to be specified within the gift agreement. Donors should closely examine an existing accounting leger for an existing endowment at the charity and assess if a charity’s current practice meets your expectations.
Yet the safeguards White recommends failed the Robertson family. The Robertson’s gift had every one of these included in its 1961 gift agreement; it was a legal document worked over extensively by the family’s and Princeton’s University’s lawyers. It even went further establishing a separate trust, with independent trustees, and the funds were separated and managed independent from Princeton’s. It had the foresight to give legal standing, and funding, to a separate foundation to enforce the Princeton gift agreement. None of these provisions were sufficient.
Charity Intelligence has no experience advising major gifts of this magnitude. If planning a mega gift, please consult with an independent, experienced philanthropic advisor of major gifts.
However, could investment practices benefit donors?
Buy outcomes – this is a growing trend among donors to buy outcomes. Far too often donors start off on the wrong foot saying at the first meeting “I’d like to donate $x millions”. Instead, begin with the goal and objectives. For example, “What would it cost to establish a premier graduate school in government administration that will be ranked in the top five nationally and graduate 200 students a year?”
Benchmark – be a smart “shopper”. Before donating, study your options, and interview different charities doing similar work. Get multiple bids for similar programs. Charity Intelligence finds significant variation between charities. In 1973 when the Robertson gift was seriously underperforming the donor’s expectations, an external comparison was done. This identified national programs getting top results, delivering far greater value than Princeton. Perhaps Charles Robertson was blinkered by being a Princeton alumnus. The external review identified that the Robertson donation could have far better achieved his objectives at graduate programs at Georgetown University, the Kennedy School at Harvard University, Texas A&M, or Syracuse University. Aside – following the 2008 settlement, this is exactly what the Robertson Foundation is doing today. It funds graduate fellowships at these universities and is happy with the results.  
Maintain control – most donors today fulfill pledges in installments. If things go wrong in the early years, payments can be withheld. This prevents further financial loss. Once the money is gifted, it is rarely returned.
 Start Small, Be Patient, Give Big as a Reward for Track Record. To test a charity’s culture, accountability and results, start with a smaller gift. With good performance, this gift can grow. This is the Gates Foundation’s strategy.
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