Tag Archives: Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations (NEO)

Nonprofit Radio for January 17, 2022: Legal Outlook For 2022

Gene Takagi: Legal Outlook For 2022

Gene Takagi

Gene Takagi returns for a mix of checklist items and emerging trends. It’s a good time to look big picture at your HR investments, corporate docs and financials. Also, what to look out for in crowdfunding, donor disclosure, data protection, and more. Gene is principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group (NEO) and our legal contributor.

 

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[00:02:10.34] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the pain of proto psychosis if you infected me with the idea that you missed this week’s show Legal Outlook for 2022, Gene Takagi returns for a mix of checklist items and emerging trends. It’s a good time to look at big picture items like your HR investments, corporate docs and financials also though what to look out for in crowdfunding donor disclosure, data protection and more, jean is principal of the nonprofit and exempt organizations law group Neo and our legal contributor On Tony’s take two 50% off planned giving accelerator. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s always my pleasure to welcome back Gene Takagi to the show. You know who he is. It’s almost it’s almost superfluous for me for me to do the intro. But but jeanne deserves it. He’s well credentialed and I want to make sure that he gets his due introduction. Gene Takagi are legal contributor and managing attorney of Neo, the nonprofit and exempt organizations law group in saN Francisco. He edits that wildly popular nonprofit law blog dot com, which you should be following and he is a part time lecturer at Columbia University. The firm is at neo law group dot com and he’s at jeanne, Welcome back.

[00:02:11.94] spk_1:
Great to be back. tony how are you?

[00:02:13.98] spk_0:
It’s always a pleasure. Thank you. I’m well happy New Year.

[00:02:17.99] spk_1:
Happy New Year.

[00:03:05.74] spk_0:
Thank you. And let’s, so let’s let’s talk about the new year. Um and just before we do I want to remind folks that not too long ago we have genes one, our legal audit which you might want to look back at. That was a sort of a condensed version of some of what we’re gonna talk about today. Although we have lots of new subjects to talk about today too. But there was the one our legal audit and also with jean recently Risk management Part one and then a different show. Risk Management Part two. So those are resources that you can look back at just from a couple of months ago and we’ll go into and and those go into more detail on some of what we’re gonna talk about today jean. Uh where would you like to start for the new year, throw it open, throw it, I throw it open to you. What would you like to start with?

[00:03:58.64] spk_1:
So it does seem like kind of this chance that restarting, getting reenergized and thinking about our organizations and where we wanted to go. Um Yes, we have to keep in mind some of those um risks that we talked about in previous shows but we also have to think about kind of where we want to go. What of our, what our dreams are um what our vision is for the organization? Had we properly captured it? Um, what is our mission? Is that sort of properly captured? Is everything because our environment seems to be changing week by week. It seems to be new stuff that comes up that we have to consider. Are we still on track with where we want to go? So having these sort of broader discussions. I like sending those organizational priorities for the new year.

[00:04:06.64] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Um, what would you, what what priority would you like to start with?

[00:06:07.94] spk_1:
Sure. So, um, being the lawyer, I say, okay, let’s talk about legal compliance just to make sure we’ve got some systems in place, mission and values, which we’ve frequently emphasized them when we’ve had discussions about not just existing to further your mission, but to do it in a way that advances your values and if equity and inclusion of part of those values, then, you know, that’s something you should be thinking about as well, definitely considering some of the trends that are out there. And I know we’ll get into that a little bit later in the show, but also including kind of the times that we’re we live in and acknowledging that yes, we’re under the impact of Covid, which seems to be shifting constantly in both how it’s affecting us and how we might need to respond to it. The great resignation, which certainly isn’t completely unrelated to the Covid, but that is a huge trend and movement as we’re trying to figure out how do we keep our workers, are we burning them out? The mental health issues that are, you know, hitting pretty much all of us, um, from the isolation, remote, working from the uncertainties of health, from sick family members and loved ones and all of that and saying, well, are we going to be able to keep our team together? Should we be keeping our team together the way we’re working now? Do we need to shift our work practices? Do we need to shift what type of benefits for giving to them? All of those things have got to be sort of raised? And I would say raise at the board level, you know, together with the executives and senior management team. Let’s talk about it. Let’s brainstorm think about this and get what our organizational priorities are this year, because things can change rapidly and rapid change if you don’t have any plans um, to anticipate some of them don’t have contingency plans can force you into very, very stressful times where immediate actions are necessary and you can sometimes make bad decisions if you’re under that type of time stress. So

[00:06:18.63] spk_0:
then it because then it becomes a crisis

[00:06:20.30] spk_1:
right? Exactly.

[00:06:48.64] spk_0:
And and a crisis in staffing, especially knowing how hard it is to hire folks now, you know, you talked about, you know, keeping the team together or should we keep should we keep the team together? But, you know, I’m sure you’re seeing it with your clients. The difficulty in hiring, you know, you want to, that, that, that’s a, that’s a huge factor in, you know, do we have the right team? Well, putting the right team together, it’s gonna take a lot longer than it used to?

[00:08:01.94] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. And if you’re talking about retention, you got to figure out what are you going to invest in this? I know you want to, you know, provide as much as you can to your beneficiaries. But if you’re not really considering the team of people in, you know, on your team that are providing those services that are supporting those services, the whole thing can collapse. So just remember where your infrastructure and when your groundwork is and how important the human resources are in your organization to being able to deliver services and provide goods for your charitable missions. So really important not to neglect that. And that requires an investment both on retention and if you aren’t able to retain everybody and you need to recruit, you’re gonna have to be able to show what you’re going to invest in those new employees and give them time to learn. You can’t expect them to perform like experience people have, um, in the past. So it’s, you know, some patients, um, and definitely investment in education and training and orientation, um, and all the rest and again, um, to the extent that your executive is probably also overwhelmed with everything else going on. The board is really pivotal in trying to be able to come up with plans that help invest in their teams.

[00:08:10.44] spk_0:
This goes to legal audit the conversation we had a few months ago. You’d like to see a review of governing documents to.

[00:09:31.74] spk_1:
Yeah, I I always think that that’s a great thing to check out in the new year. Just even if you have somebody, you know, a higher up kind of a board member or where your executive or senior manager take a look At your articles and bylaws, even spending 30 minutes on it and saying is our mission really reflected in these documents or have we evolved into something else? And these documents are like stale and old and outdated now in that case those documents still rule. So if you have the I. R. S. Or a state regulator coming in audit you, if you’re not performing within that mission statement in your articles and bylaws, you could be acting completely out of compliance and worst case scenario, you can really threaten the organization through penalties, etcetera. So that’s something to take a look at. Also just take a look at a lot of organizations. I find out their their boards, they’re like, oh, you know, we forgot to elect them. You know, we, we, you know, we’ve had terms, you know of two years but they’ve been on for like 10 years and we’re happy with them. So we just don’t do elections that can be really, really harmful as well for multiple reasons. But you know, sit back, see what you’re doing and what you’re not doing consistent with your articles and bylaws. And if you need to change things determine that you have to change. And if you need the help of a lawyer, try to find somebody that can help you with that. And there are some good resources on the web as well.

[00:09:48.64] spk_0:
What’s, what’s one of the good resources?

[00:10:15.04] spk_1:
A little bit of a self plug because I’m a board member, but board source has excellent resources on board of directors, governance things of that nature. Stanford University also has excellent resources in terms of sort of template documents that are just a guide for nonprofits. It’s not one size fits all, but it just gives you a general idea about how some things operate. Um, so those are just too good resources to look at.

[00:10:18.35] spk_0:
And, and again, we, we talked about this extensively in the show called your one

[00:10:24.34] spk_1:
hour legal audit.

[00:10:30.14] spk_0:
You have some last one. You have some financial performance advice for the new year.

[00:13:04.74] spk_1:
Yeah. Well I think probably, um, most people take a look at their financials throughout the year on the board level and on the executive level. Um, but the new year, you’ve actually sort of completed your financials and they might not be, um, in final form yet, but you might have what some people call it pro form, a set of financials, um, sort of close to final, where you get to assess what you’ve done in the year, you know, for, for most organizations, this goes without saying, but you want to make sure that you’re performing in a way that you’re not becoming insolvent. So you want to make sure what your balance sheet looks like and whether you have net assets, um, if you don’t have net assets, that means that you are either insolvent or, you know, in the zone of insolvency, you have to think about how you’re going to address that very serious issue. And I would say you don’t have internal expertise on dealing with it, get outside help right away if that’s the case. But your, your statement of revenues and expenses as well, are you sort of operating what people call in the black so that there is, you know, some net income in there or are you operating in the red where you’re very concerned because you’re losing money, timing is always important. So it’s misleading to look at one year in isolation because sometimes grants are given in one year, but they’re actually uh received in another year. So the timing issue can pose different challenges about reading financials. So you want to be able to read it sort of collectively through a multi year period just to know where you stand. And again, if board members aren’t able to help an executive and the executive feels like they need some help with understanding financials, to reading financials invest in everybody’s training in this area and there are a lot of people, even pro bono, that, that are offering this training pro bono and a lot of resources on the web. So make sure you understand your financials and what they’re indicating. You don’t need to know every single financial ratio that you know, business people use, but just generally no. Are you healthy financially or are you trending bad? And if you have several years where you’re in the red, where you, where you’re not making money, it looks like you’re bleeding money, then that might be indicative of some change that’s necessary in order to make your organization sustainable on an ongoing basis. So again, you don’t want to hit crisis mode financially. So this is a good chance, take a look at your financials, not just last year, but over a multiyear period and see where you are, get help if you need it.

[00:15:08.54] spk_0:
We have a show that I replayed, oh, I think within the past six months, uh, the guest was Andy Robinson. So you could go to tony-martignetti dot com and just search his name Andy Robinson, but it was something like teaching your board basic financials and he wrote a book, I’m pretty sure it was published by charity channel, uh, with, with a title similar to that. So if you, and the show is a few years old, but reading financial statements and and balance sheets hasn’t changed much in probably 100 years. Um, so it’s just all in and out now now, it’s all in Excel. But uh, so if you’d like some help with that, there is a, there is a show where Andy Robinson was the guest talking about, you’re improving your boards, financial literacy. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications, your 2022 communications plan. Does it have lots of projects? Lots of writing projects? You can get the biggest projects off your plate and outsource them. Free up staff time to devote to the work that it’s not feasible to have others doing for you. Like the annual report, just because it’s been done in house in the past, doesn’t mean it has to be done in house this year. What about research reports, White papers, your other heavy lift pieces. Do you need help with writing projects in 2022, Turn to communications, your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Now, back to legal outlook for 2022 with Gene Takagi. Okay, so let’s talk about some trends then, jean, you have a, you have a case we haven’t talked about, we haven’t talked about an actual case for a while. Americans for prosperity.

[00:19:16.54] spk_1:
Yeah. So um that was a huge U. S. Supreme Court case at least huge for the nonprofit sector. Um, but with deeper implications for if I if I’m not over hyping it for democracy itself. So um so americans for prosperity, Foundation versus Banta, who was the California Attorney general basically it was about the schedule be disclosure of donors who donated more than $5000. So for nonprofits who know how to prepare their form 19 nineties, you’ll know that on schedule B of your form 1990. Eur actually disclosing to the I. R. S. It’s not public information. Um But it’s to the I. R. S. The name and address of your donors who donated more than $5000. Now that hasn’t changed, you still have to disclose it to the I. R. S. But certain states, including California where volunteers from as the attorney general um New york I believe New Jersey I believe Hawaii also included Um all asked for a copy of the 990 including an unredacted schedule B to be given to the state regulator because they also want to look at that information for state law compliance purposes. A lot of them are concerned about donors who give money but get something back in return that’s not being disclosed. So if they ever have to have an investigation of that, that information turns out to be very helpful to the state to be able to say ah they were giving money but they also took in this huge benefit, this huge contract for example, which you know, reap them millions of dollars. Um So there was a legal case um that went up through the courts um finally hit the U. S. Supreme Court and the A. G. Lost here, The California G. Um So the court decided and we know the court’s composition is fairly conservative right now. The court decided that uh the states don’t have this right. Um It was based on the fact finding of the lower courts which is a little bit unfortunate because if the higher court could have considered more facts, then it might have been decided a different way but based on kind of how how our legal system works and and and how the Supreme Court works and the composition of the Supreme Court. They held that, hey this is not disclosed able to the states essentially that’s the impact of it. The broader impact on why I said democracy might be uh issue here is because well what about sort of campaign finance disclosures? And what about the I. R. S. Should they be entitled to that information as well? So it’s really helpful in compliance. But the counter argument and why some organizations charities, we’re also um not in favor of the disclosures is because of the protection of the donor. And the old case cited um in this part of the argument was an N double A cp case that said, well, if we disclose our donors, the KKK had threatened to kill all of them. Um And you can see why privacy was important in that issue and this issue, it was nothing like this. I think it’s a Koch brothers, um, kind of funded charity. They wanted really to keep their identity, um, more hidden because they have desires to influence politics in many ways. And if it always gets associated with them, then the impact lessons. So if they can look like they’re ground swells of movements that are funding these things rather than individual donors, um, it looks better for for what they’re trying to do. So that’s, you know, that’s what’s at stake here is not only are the state’s not allowed to get this information that would really help them in state law enforcement of whether there’s diversion of charitable assets that benefit

[00:19:29.74] spk_0:
donors. But

[00:19:30.15] spk_1:
in the broader sense, are we going to allow more dark money to enter into our political systems without knowing that there are donors, heavy donors that back these, you know, politicians or political parties or political movements. So that’s the scary part about this decision.

[00:19:57.94] spk_0:
What’s the, I think infamous Supreme Court case that that allowed the allowed the dark money into, uh, into politics. United

[00:20:02.73] spk_1:
Citizens. United

[00:20:27.54] spk_0:
United. Yeah. Um, All right. All right. And so I just want to repeat this. So this case that Gene was just talking about is americans for prosperity Foundation V. Banta B. O. N. T. A. What about crowdfunding you, you point out that there’s a new crowdfunding law. Hope is this a little more optimistic? I hope?

[00:21:22.54] spk_1:
Uh, well, depending upon how you look at it. And I think in one sense it’s inevitable. Um, a lot of our laws that are developed regarding fundraising, um, don’t even, and never anticipated the internet, right, johnny. So, uh, you know, now crowdfunding platform is, you know, not just the internet, the use of the internet, but it’s a lot of different for profit companies getting involved, um, to enable charities and organizations and people who are not charities to raise funds that look like they could be for charitable purposes, Right? So you want to help victims of a fire, but you want to help them directly, because some individuals said, I want to start a Go fund Me campaign, right? And say, well, you know, chip in 50 bucks and let’s try to get these people some help doesn’t, that doesn’t go through a charity. Often it just goes to this person, right, who promises to give these other people money

[00:21:35.90] spk_0:
and go funding the person’s goodwill. Honestly, yeah,

[00:21:58.14] spk_1:
Go fund Me is, you know, reacted to this and they’re probably the biggest crowdfunding platforms. So they’ve reacted to this in terms of having their own internal policies to help prevent a check. But overall, there’s, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of crowdfunding platforms out there that do this to make a profit. Um, and they may not have those types of controls or checks to not to just, you know, prevent somebody from saying, let’s raise money to help fire victims and then just keeping it. Um, so,

[00:22:11.97] spk_0:
what, what, what is the import of the law for, for us?

[00:23:21.34] spk_1:
So I think the import of the law is, if you’re going to get on and decide, hey, we want to do crowdfunding, um, you’ve got to select your platform provider carefully and this law, which is in California, but is likely to spread across different states in various forms, says, well now, if you’re gonna do that, you’ve got to make sure that this crowdfunding platform is registered. Um, and they’re reporting and there are all sorts of rules involved. So if you have a contract with them, it should be subject to these rules that might say things like, well, if they collect money, they have to give the money to the charity within a certain time period. Right? So they couldn’t say, well, it takes this administration, so maybe a couple of years before you get that, you know, nobody’s gonna be happy with that, but without rules, why not? Um, so these are, this is why it’s important for charities to have rules. The actual details of the rules. So I can see why some people have some, some issue with them. And we haven’t had all of the regulations yet, they’re still in discussion. So this is very, Still very trending, but the crowdfunding law, the law, the general law that’s in place now will become effective in California in 2023, and the regulations are being developed right now,

[00:23:58.04] spk_0:
let’s turn to remote work, which is obviously so much more common now. Hybrid work, you know, return to work dates are being pushed off and off. Um What what are what are what are what trends are you seeing? What should be on, will you be on the lookout for with respect to uh remote work and employment law issues?

[00:25:10.84] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s, you know, this is a really tricky area. Um you know, for sure, Covid where people were suddenly not permitted to to go indoors in some cases for months. Um and who knows if, you know, we’re going to return to some of those scenarios with the omicron variant out there, We’re hoping that it’s less um severe in terms of its impact, even if it might be a more transmissible, but if we if we keep worrying about this and saying, you know, our workers aren’t comfortable coming to work, even if the law allows them to come to work. Um Maybe we’re going to let people work remotely, and many of us have gone full remote, some of us have gone back to partial returns, some have gone back to full returns and then gone back, you know out the other way and said, okay, you know, it’s at the workers discretion whether they want to come in or not. So what makes us a little bit tricky. Um is that you don’t control the work environment as the employer, if they’re working at home, right? Um but that becomes the work environment, if they’re doing work from home, that’s their work environment, and, you know, the employer is responsible for the work environment if they should get hurt, for example,

[00:25:22.94] spk_0:
um

[00:26:56.24] spk_1:
So it becomes a little bit tricky about, well, how do you, how do you handle that for workers comp reasons, for safety reasons, for OSHA reasons? Um and I think there’s an understanding by regulators that, you know, this is out of control of most small businesses, small charities and, you know, to to that extent, we’re not really gonna look to enforce things on that level, but there are other things that, that are also concerning, because not everybody goes when, when they decide to work remote, we work in the same city or in the same state, right. A lot of us um have decided to, you know, maybe move back with family, which might be in another state. In some cases it could be another country, or some of us have decided to travel and spend a little bit of time, you know, in different places. Um So how does allow treat that? And basically, you know, the old rules, which are the rules, many of us are stuck with. Um the old rules are, well, you have to comply with the laws where the worker is doing the work, so if you have a worker in new york who’s now working remotely and came out to florida, well, then all the employment rules regarding worker safety and wage and hour laws and salary, overtime, sick pay benefits, all the florida laws apply to that worker now. Um, and so now it’s like, well, you’ve got to work in florida, you’ve got to think about, are you qualified to do business in

[00:27:00.21] spk_0:
florida,

[00:27:36.94] spk_1:
charity registration in florida? Um, and you may have had no connection to florida before, but all of a sudden you have a worker working there. Um, so a few states, um, and they’re not very many, but a few states that said, well, you know, during covid, we’ve got these temporary rules where we’re relaxed, where you don’t have to do that. And there’s also state tax issues, right? State payroll taxes, and, and other times, all of those things, some states said, you don’t have to worry about it. A lot of organizations are simply not complying with, But,

[00:27:37.49] spk_0:
but you said it’s only a handful of states that said, we’re we’re we’re not enforcing

[00:27:42.14] spk_1:
right. Exactly.

[00:27:43.33] spk_0:
The majority of

[00:29:01.34] spk_1:
states are, Yeah, well, I shouldn’t say they’re enforcing, but they haven’t the old laws or the existing laws still apply. There are no transition laws, so you’re out of compliance. And if they do enforce, which might not be like a, you know, a regulator coming out to you and saying you haven’t done this, it may be your employee is unhappy with something you’ve done, who’s working there and said, hey florida law applies and you haven’t been complying with the florida sort of benefits laws that, that apply. And maybe I could give you more specific example because san Francisco, if you came out to California, your remote employee came out to California, san Francisco has mandatory six hours and not a lot, a lot of states don’t have sick our pay. Um, but all of a sudden if you’re not paying them and they get wind of that, hey, you were supposed to pay me for this and you haven’t been, it’s the employee who could launch the complaint. Um, so it’s just to be careful of these things and, and just as your strategy for charity registration, tony when you’re sort of fundraising all over the country to, to, you’re not going to be able to maybe do all 50 states at once, but just to make sure you’ve got a plan to attack this kind of the same thing here. Um, check out where your employees are, you should know exactly where they are and check each state in terms of how strictly, maybe in terms of enforcing this and start to slowly comply

[00:30:12.74] spk_0:
the implications of state law. Yeah. What about the technology remote work? I don’t know if that’s all been figured out yet and maybe there were, maybe there were stopgap measures during the, during the, the darkest part of the pandemic, but but going forward, you know, tech technology has to be, has to be upgraded. You know, are we gonna, we’re gonna continue providing work phones? Are we going to provide work laptops? What about paying for internet access over the long term? I mean, you know, the internet access can be costly. And if if work is taking up a lot of the bandwidth, isn’t it appropriate for an employer to be paying a portion? And then how do then how does the, how does the, what’s the mechanism for the employee verifying how much they pay and you know, and then what percentage are we gonna cover of that, all the all the technology issues around, around remote work.

[00:30:58.44] spk_1:
Yeah, def definitely. And and as an as an employer, I would say, beyond sort of any legal compliance issues, um, you’ve got a, I think an ethical issue to make sure you’re providing your employees with the tools to do their job. And if you’re allowing remote work, you should make sure that they have the tools. So if they need a computer to be able to access it, so they’re not, they’re not using their personal computer. Um then you should make sure that happens same thing with the telephone. And if, you know, if those are going to be dedicated to work, um it should be explicitly written out that way. But if you force them to use their personal things, there are some states that actually do have laws that say you must reimburse your your employees if they’re using the tools that they need um for for remote work, but just ethically. Yeah.

[00:31:18.74] spk_0:
But then that’s then that raises security issues too. Absolutely. They have any kind of HIPPA protected information on their personal laptop. That’s gonna be a big problem. That that’s I think that’s probably a mistake if you’re dealing with that kind of data. But um

[00:32:01.74] spk_1:
and don’t we probably all have that type of stuff on our personal computers, right? You know, sort of HIPPA protected? We may have had emails like that are saved onto our computers. Um Right. So if if the computer is also being used for work and there’s a work issue that causes that data to be taken or corrupted, like, you know, what’s the employer’s responsibility if they hadn’t provided an alternative, it’s a great point

[00:32:50.94] spk_0:
and and it’s not only hip hop data, but other other personalized data that that maybe on now the personals, the employee’s personal computer, desktop or laptop or phone, you know, how is that? How is that private private data protected? Do they have malware prevention on their on their personal devices so that so that company emails that they’re that they’re using on their personal device aren’t potentially compromised. I mean, the use of the personal equipment raises a lot of technology and and Legal privacy and ethical issues to your right. I mean, if the person is eight or 10 hours a day, they’re using their personal laptop, shouldn’t there be some compensation for that?

[00:34:46.94] spk_1:
Yeah. And I think minimally because no matter you know how much we encourage people to have sort of work dedicated computers provided by the workplace, people are going to use their personal phones. I mean we can go back to the politicians who have all been using their personal funds. So we know it happens regardless of what the best practices. But what can the employer do, they can pay for all of that data protection stuff that that computer should have. Right, tony because now it has much more sensitive information on there and the employer is partly responsible for some of the other information that could be on there and hack. So yeah, employers should help. And that kind of leads us to the whole data security issue as well that everybody’s got to be paying attention to now is really um nonprofits have important data in their system. Some of it is, you know, hipaa protected some of it is other privacy information. You may have employment reviews on there that you don’t want going out into the real world or client, you know, feedback which might be positive. Some of it might be negative sensitive communications, all sorts of stuff that you might find on a work computer and if it gets hacked and if that data gets stolen or if somebody holds the system which might run your programs or aspects of your programs if they cause your system to crash and say that they will only sort of fix it because they’ve hacked and caused the crash. If you pay a ransom, you’ve got all sorts of problems. Uh and maybe some of that may have been mitigated with some basic steps like you mean you’re not going to be, well even the U. S. Government can’t prevent all hackers. I think we we know that, but you can take reasonable steps based on your budget, whatever that might be to to control some of this. So it really is important to have some safeguards.

[00:34:55.74] spk_0:
Another potential category of data is the G. D. P. R. Data. If if if your nonprofit is implicated at all in in that european common law law then or the yeah then then you’ve got those concerns as well.

[00:35:08.94] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. So if you have european donors or you’re doing business with any european entities and you have data from those entities or persons be careful and again, remote working can trigger some of that. So if if they decided to, you know their home or or they want to travel to europe and do their work from there.

[00:35:28.74] spk_0:
Um,

[00:35:29.74] spk_1:
all sorts of implications.

[00:37:44.03] spk_0:
Yeah. Absolutely right. People very good point where where people are sitting and where they’re planted when they’re working, It’s time for Tony Take two We’ve got 50% off the tuition for planned giving accelerator. That’s because just last week A donor stepped up someone who believes very deeply in planned giving accelerator and he is offering to pay 50% of the tuition For the 1st 10 nonprofits that take him up on his offer. A couple have already done it as of the time I’m recording, but there are several spots left. So if you’ve been toying with the idea of planned giving accelerator, it’s never going to be cheaper than 50% off. What the way this will work is. You’ll pay the tuition in full, which is $1195 for the six month course. This donor will then make a gift to you of half of that. So you’ll have a new donor, he’ll pay half your tuition. So it ends up being 50% off the full tuition cost. I know the donor, it’s someone I trust you have my word. Your final cost will be half of the full tuition if you’d like to jump on this and be one of the members of what is now our february class. I want to give people enough time for this because it, it just came in last week. So I’m extending, we’re, we’re not gonna start the class until february if you’d like to be part of that february class At 50% off email and we’ll, we’ll talk about planned giving accelerator and whether it can help you launch your planned giving program. Mhm. tony at tony-martignetti dot com. That’s me. That is Tony’s take two, We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for legal outlook for 2022

[00:38:01.22] spk_1:
one and one of the tools to think about and I’m a little bit guilty of this as well um is be careful of public wifi um because that often is an entryway for a

[00:38:03.83] spk_0:
hacker. Yeah, that’s totally unsecured airports, airplanes,

[00:38:09.89] spk_1:
coffee shops,

[00:38:13.42] spk_0:
coffee shops, Starbucks, wherever those are, all unsecured networks.

[00:38:29.32] spk_1:
Right? Meaning that there is the potential for somebody in there who has some malicious intent if they want to be able to hack into to your computer through that public wifi. Unsecured wifi. And there are different systems um but maybe one of the simplest for for those of us who have smartphones, which I think is most of us is you could actually create a sort of a private wifi just

[00:38:52.92] spk_0:
for your smartphone, right? Hotspot? Hotspot and don’t use the unsecured wifi to connect to, you know, use the uh the four G or five G or the five GHZ et cetera.

[00:38:56.17] spk_1:
Right? And that’s something an employer could pay to make sure that the employee has significant data and data plan that can incorporate all the additional data that they may need in their plan because of the work. So again, that would be reasonable and and ethical for the nonprofit employer to pay for their employees to have a higher data plan. Um, if they’re going to to use that and insist as a policy that they do not use public wifi. If they’re using a work computer or a computer that contains work and sensitive information,

[00:39:36.52] spk_0:
all you need is to transmit an email on, on an unsecured wifi that that has a donors credit card number, maybe

[00:39:38.77] spk_1:
native

[00:39:58.12] spk_0:
birth address, name any, any two of those things together, uh, hacked could be very detrimental to that donor. And you know, whether it ever gets traced back to you is is uncertain, but you’ve, you’ve put your donors privacy at risk in a simple email that has any two of those pieces of information.

[00:40:04.31] spk_1:
And it appears to be a myth, um, when people have relied on, they’re not going to go after us because we’re nonprofits, people don’t go

[00:40:12.29] spk_0:
after. Oh, that’s bullshit. Oh, that’s ridiculous.

[00:40:14.57] spk_1:
Right?

[00:40:22.61] spk_0:
I’m working with a client now that, that is a, is in new york city that’s, that’s, um, victim of, of a malware, uh, ransomware, so brought me a ransomware attack.

[00:40:27.61] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:40:40.41] spk_0:
And they’re keeping it quiet so I’m not permitted to say who it is. But um, yeah, they’ve, they’ve been, they’ve been hindered for weeks and weeks with data accessibility issues.

[00:40:42.71] spk_1:
Yeah. And it’s much more common than we think because organizations do want to keep it quiet because if there is a vulnerability, they don’t want to come and say other hackers come come and attack us, we’re vulnerable. So it may be much more pervasive than we think

[00:40:57.61] spk_0:
and that myth also breaks down along ideological

[00:41:00.04] spk_1:
lines.

[00:41:21.61] spk_0:
Some some person on the left may may attack an organization on the right. Some person on the right may attack an organization on the left just because of where the organization stands with respect to the person’s political and ideological beliefs that that that’s enough. It doesn’t matter that you’re a nonprofit. It’s it’s your ideology and your mission. It has nothing to do with your tax exempt status as to why somebody would or wouldn’t go after you.

[00:41:28.41] spk_1:
Yeah and um in these times that those ideological differences have been very um pronounced and. Yeah.

[00:41:41.11] spk_0:
Alright where else should we go? Gene with trends, trends for the new year. Come on.

[00:44:24.69] spk_1:
Um Let’s talk a little bit since we’re talking about technology and data security. Let’s talk a little bit about crypto currency because I find that pretty fascinating. Um There was an organization that came together and bid $40 million on a copy of the U. S. Constitution just a few weeks ago. Um That money the $40 million plus more I think about 47 or $48 million was raised for that purpose in less than two weeks. Um So um Cryptocurrency donors um often have made a ton of money because of the appreciation of cryptocurrencies like. Bitcoin for for those who aren’t super familiar with it. Um And if you donate Cryptocurrency, it’s like donating a non cash asset, meaning that if You bought crypto currency for $1,000 10 years ago and it’s worth now several million dollars, which if you bought the red Cryptocurrency, that might be the case if you sold it, uh you would have a lot of taxes to pay on that appreciation right? The several million dollars of appreciated income that would be subject to capital gains tax. Um So if you sold it and donated some of the proceeds, that would not be a very tax efficient way to donate. When if you donated the Cryptocurrency itself, what you do is you get to take a fair market value deduction of the several million dollars. So you gave several million. So potentially you could deduct that is a charitable contribution and pay no capital gains tax because he never sold it. Um So very tax efficient way of giving um And Cryptocurrency people, wealthy millionaires and others who decided that they wanted see some positive impact um from giving these gifts are are making gifts of Cryptocurrency now and that’s that’s partly why I am so many gathered together to say hey we’d like to fund a charity to buy a copy of the U. S. Constitution so that we can ensure that this constitution is always for the public’s benefit and on public viewership and not sitting in somebody’s house, you know for for their own prestige. Um But that really opens it up, cherish. Think about there’s a lot of these people who made quite a bit of money on Cryptocurrency and a lot of younger people are investing barely heavily in Cryptocurrency now. So it’s something to not sort of blow away if we’re um kind of our age or older, tony to say, Cryptocurrency, what is that? It’s it’s something to really embrace now because it’s it’s not just this exotic tool now, it’s part of regular investment portfolios.

[00:45:56.79] spk_0:
Absolutely, it’s it’s it’s coming and and jean this dovetails perfectly with Our November 15 show of 2021 Bitcoin in the future of fundraising with my guests who are an Connolly and Jason shim who wrote a book Bitcoin in the future of fundraising. So, um it’s do you it’s just more, more sage advice that crypto donations are coming. It’s not a matter of if it’s just when are you gonna get on board now or you’re gonna wait two more years and potentially be behind the curve. Um and as an and Jason pointed out today, there are so few organizations accepting crypto that a lot of people are just searching for. Where can I donate? Cryptocurrency and probably largely, Gene for the reasons you’re describing there, They’re looking for a direct crypto donation to help them with substantial capital gains. Are there specific legal implications of crypto donations that that we need to be aware of or or is it just, you know, you just want folks to know that this trend is, it’s in the middle, it’s happening right now.

[00:48:15.97] spk_1:
So I think, you know, one of the reasons why charities are afraid to take Kryptos because they don’t know what laws apply when they receive the crypto. They’re like, what do we do with this? Um, and there are ways to easily cash that out and turn it into us cash. And in fact, most charities that accept crypto and they’re not a lot, you’re right, tony but most carriers that accept them liquidate them immediately turned them into cash and deposited into fiat currency, like regular paper currency, um, in their bank accounts. Um, So they’re not holding onto the crypto very long at all. One of the reasons why that’s, that can be very important is because there are prudent investor rules for charities that don’t apply to for profits that basically say if you’ve got investment assets, charities, this is not just endowments, but just any sort of investment assets for reserves or for a capital fund or anything you can’t invest. It speculatively, you couldn’t just throw it all in like Apple stock, um that would be too speculative. You have to look at it, uh, through what financial professionals, investment professionals called portfolio theory, are you sufficiently um, have an investment portfolio diversified across several different asset classes? So if one bombs, you haven’t tanked all of your money. Um, and the board of directors have a fiduciary duty to live up to the prudent investment laws that also sort of follow this portfolio theory of how how have you actually divest? Sorry? Um diversify Yeah. Um your your funds across different investment classes to protect yourself and there are different considerations that go along with that. Um But that is one reason why you don’t want to get stuck with all of your investments being in crypto because crypto maybe one of the most volatile type of investments where it can double in a matter of days and it could tank and disappear in a matter of days as well. So depending upon what type of Cryptocurrency you have and there are hundreds if not thousands of crypto types of Cryptocurrency um that have evolved in a lot of people and organizations that are making new coins all the time. So new new forms of Cryptocurrency arising and while we talked about crypto as being a part of more investment portfolios as a normal part of of investments. Now it’s not every Cryptocurrency that would be in that it’s certainly one

[00:48:47.07] spk_0:
1000 right? Some of these thousands trade for thousands of pennies, Thousands Yeah thousands of pennies even you know .0001 three zeros and a one is you know is the value of the currency. Um So. Alright that’s perfect as I said, perfect dovetail to that to that uh that november show because you’re you’re raising the prudent investor rule and and uh portfolio theory.

[00:50:07.66] spk_1:
One more thing on this, tony the forms the I. R. S. Forms for when you get Non cash contributions of more than $500. And how quickly you sell them. Um Also applies to form 82 83 is what the donor needs to sign when they give a non cash contribution of over $500 of over $500. And if it’s over $5000 which many crypto gifts are, they have to get a qualified appraisal for this. So that’s really important. And the Dhoni which is the charity has to sign that form for the donor. And then if the donor the Dhoni, I’m sorry the charity sells it within three years, they have to sign a form 80 to 82. Yeah so that’s again it’s not terribly hard. It sounds like a lot of just legalese I’m blabbing out but it’s not too hard but just take a quick look at those. If you decide that you want to start getting Cryptocurrency and at worst you might ask your donor to find a donor advised fund that takes crypto turns it into cash and then disperses it to the charity. So there are donor advised funds that do that

[00:50:15.76] spk_0:
interesting. Okay so so a Cryptocurrency donation is a non cash donation

[00:50:19.90] spk_1:
correct?

[00:50:58.76] spk_0:
Okay and for non cash donations of $500 or more, That’s where your your donor has the implication of i. r. s. Form 82 83. And you as the charity if you sell it within three years which your advice is that they do because it’s of its volatility Then you’ve got the implication of i. r. s. Form 80 – 82. I always thought those were backwards. The donors should have 80 to 82 because that comes first. Then comes 82 83 from the don’t to the Dhoni first the donor has it. Then the charity should be 80 to 82 82 83. But it’s not It’s 82 83 for your donor and 80 – 82 for you.

[00:51:06.16] spk_1:
That sounds like larry david logic. But that’s how I think as well.

[00:51:10.58] spk_0:
Yeah. I’ve been accused of being larry David in lots of ways. Including my my hair when it’s long like it is

[00:51:16.23] spk_1:
now. I’ve

[00:51:33.46] spk_0:
been accused of looking like Larry David. But we’re not complaining, we’re helping. That’s all right. Um Alright let’s leave us with something else. Another trend for the new year that you want us to be thinking about gene. Um

[00:51:36.96] spk_1:
Let me talk a little bit about diversity equity and inclusion. Since we’ve we’ve talked about that in the

[00:51:42.21] spk_0:
past. You could search jean and I have talked about D. I a bunch of times. But

[00:53:46.05] spk_1:
yeah please. You know I think in combination when we talk about the great migration and how the pandemic might be affecting different populations in different ways that we start to think again about kind of? Well if our charity is doing some some mission and we might not think of that mission as being really reflective of of specific races or or anything like that. Um But could D. E. I. B. Important anyway. And I think that’s where we get to think about. Well if we had more perspectives in our organization, if if we’re lacking some of those perspectives now, for example not having a lot of latin thinks Hispanics or blacks or asian americans on the board or in the leadership group, maybe we’re not really thinking about how our services that we’re delivering are affecting different populations differently. Maybe we’re just sort of providing services but we’re focused on urban centers or urban centers where if we’re center based, our center based is in neighborhoods that are much more accessible to uh white populations versus other populations. So getting different perspectives, even if we think of ourselves as being race neutral, which is kind of a charged term. But I’ll just use it for for these purposes. If we think some of us think of ourselves as race neutral and therefore we don’t have to get involved in the D. E. I work. We want to say, well don’t we care about serving our population in a way that’s kind of fair and not just favoring one segment over other segments or just totally neglecting certain segments of the population because they don’t have the same type of access. Have we ever thought about those things and having diversity can help us think about those things. Um, but it has to be done obviously in an inclusive way, which we’ve talked about and I know we just have a few minutes here, but it’s

[00:54:03.34] spk_0:
sort of it’s touching on, you know, not knowing what you don’t know without without having the perspective of diverse populations on your board, in your leadership, then you don’t know how you’re not serving other non white populations. Yeah. And even when we were perceived by other by by non white populations.

[00:55:32.64] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly. And even when we say, well when we look at a group of people and we say diversity, you know, that has one meaning. But sometimes when we just look in our inside our own heads, uh, and when people go unconscious bias, for example, try to think about what that is. It’s like, well if we don’t have the benefit of having different perspectives are being exposed to that all of our lives and none of us have all of the perspectives in our lives. So we were all going to be guilty of some sort of unconscious bias because we just don’t know any better. We we haven’t had other information that would have help develop a sensitivity or understanding or just knowledge of some of the disparities that are out there. So, and and how our organization can be either helping those disparities or hindering them. So just getting a sense of where we’d like to go. I think that can improve employee retention. It can lead us to new areas of employee recruitment and it can make us more relevant as organizations in the future, where if we’re not addressing some of these things, we could find ourselves becoming irrelevant less attractive to future donors, especially younger donors who this is very important to. Um, and so that’s my, my closing thought. Mhm.

[00:55:48.24] spk_0:
All good thoughts for uh, for the new year for 2022, Gene Takagi are legal, legal contributor, Managing attorney of Neo. You’ll find him at nonprofit law blog dot com. He’s also at G attack and you’ll find the firm at neo law group dot com. Gene again, thank you very much. Happy New Year.

[00:55:57.39] spk_1:
Happy New Year. tony

[00:56:47.13] spk_0:
next week. I’m working on it very diligently. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Do you need help with any of those ready projects in 2022? Get them off your plate. A creative producer is claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein. Mm hmm, thank you for that affirmation scotty Be with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for November 1, 2021: Risk Management II

My Guest:

Gene Takagi: Risk Management II

Gene Takagi

Gene Takagi returns to complete our coverage of the risks lurking in your employee relations; facilities; events; and vehicles. Also, what to do to keep those risks at a minimum, so incidents don’t hurt your nonprofit. Gene is our legal contributor and principal at NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group. (Part I was on October 4th.)

 

 

 

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We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

Nonprofit Radio for October 4, 2021: Risk Management I

My Guest:

Gene Takagi: Risk Management I

Gene Takagi

You want to keep your nonprofit safe. To help you, Gene Takagi starts a 2-part mini-series on risk management. We kick off with indemnification. It sounds boring. But it’s a word with great significance for your board members, officers, employees; your contracts; even your sexual harassment policy. Gene is our legal contributor and the principal of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group.

 

 

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Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

Nonprofit Radio for July 5, 2021: Your 5-Point, 1-Hour Legal Audit

My Guest:

Gene Takagi: Your 5-Point, 1-Hour Legal Audit

Gene Takagi

Gene Takagi returns! He walks you through five quick checks of your nonprofit’s documents, processes and status, to make sure you’re on the right side of the law. Gene is our legal contributor and managing attorney at NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group.

 

 

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We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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[00:01:46.44] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast and oh I’m glad you’re with me, I’d suffer the effects of pro so PAG nausea if I saw that you missed this week’s show. Eur 5.1 Our legal audit, jeanne Takagi returns, he walks you through the five quick checks of your nonprofits, documents, processes and status that make sure you’re on the right side of the law genius. Our legal contributor and managing attorney at neo the nonprofit and exempt organizations Law group on tony state too. Mayor Cooper, We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. And by sending blue the only all in one digital marketing platform empowering non profits to grow tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in blue, what a pleasure to welcome as it always is, Jean Takagi back to nonprofit radio He is our legal contributor of course and managing attorney of neo the nonprofit and exempt organizations law group in SAN Francisco. He edits the wildly popular nonprofit law blog dot com and is a part time lecturer at Columbia University. The firm is that neo law group dot com and he’s at G attack. You certainly should be following him if you’re not. Uh it’s your life. Welcome back jean,

[00:01:57.19] spk_1:
Great to be back. tony How are you?

[00:02:03.54] spk_0:
Always a pleasure you’re smiling, I love it, thank you. How is everything going in san Francisco wise now? Late june

[00:02:08.14] spk_1:
well we’ve been having really comfortable, even chilly weather that Mark Twain quote, I don’t think it was actually Mark Twain, but about the coldest day spending a summer in san Francisco is uh somewhat apt right now, but I’m not envying the high temperatures up in my home country of the pacific northwest

[00:02:43.84] spk_0:
Oregon. I was just talking to AMY sample ward earlier today and yesterday too. And uh 116 she said it’s broken. It’s broken since then, but uh astronomically high temperatures for for three days in a row. They had.

[00:02:49.04] spk_1:
Yeah, unbelievable.

[00:02:54.14] spk_0:
Yeah, I know. Okay. But you’re you’re much more comfortable in san Francisco good complaints taking any time off this summer.

[00:03:00.84] spk_1:
Um I’m planning to go back to Canada once the borders are open to visit my mom and family, but no word on the official opening date yet, we’re hoping by August one.

[00:03:12.79] spk_0:
Okay, So Canada is still restricting us residents?

[00:03:16.74] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s still kind of closed off right now, but we’ll see when it opens up again. Okay.

[00:03:23.37] spk_0:
Okay. Maybe I’ve been paying more attention to Australia than I have Canada. I know, I know Sydney is on a new lockdown. All right, Where in Canada? Where is your family in Canada?

[00:03:33.44] spk_1:
In Vancouver? So in that pacific northwest?

[00:03:50.44] spk_0:
Yes. Right. Right. All right. So you have this nifty one hour, 5. for us. A review of documents and a process and your status. Why don’t you why don’t you get us started? But this is not this is a legitimate audit. Uh Not a uh this is not an Arizona style audit from.

[00:04:05.84] spk_1:
Yeah. And this is an accountant. Side it. So this is kind of your own internal check of do these things and you’ll sleep better at night knowing that you’re either okay or you know what you need to fix. So,

[00:04:12.32] spk_0:
okay, if you need to fix some things, you might need someone like, like you to help.

[00:04:28.54] spk_1:
Could be or you might even be able to do it yourself. So, some of the fixes are easy. Some of the fixes might be a little bit more difficult, but um, you should know where you stand. I think that’s that’s the first thing and that’s why

[00:04:32.36] spk_0:
for sure. First step, no, no your status. Okay. So so kick us off. What’s your what’s your first idea?

[00:05:48.04] spk_1:
So I think the first thing you look at is your articles or certificate of incorporation. That was your formation document to start out with. And you want to see what the purpose of the organization is. So the articles govern every other there the like the one ring that rules all the rings showing my geeky side. That’s the one document that rules all the other documents and there’s no superseding what the articles say. So the articles say in the purpose statement, what you do and you’ve evolved past that. Maybe there’s a geographic limitation that says you only operate in new york in the articles and, you know, 50 years ago, that was true. But since then, you’re, you know, you’re operating in the tri state area or also in California, whatever that may be your articles, we’ll tell you what you can and can’t do and if they’re so limiting and you’ve grown past it, you’ve got to fix that. So amending the articles would be the next step. But within that one hour, it’ll probably just take you two minutes to read that purpose statement and say, oh, this is right online with our mission statement or it’s so broad that it covers anything we might do now, we’re in the future. Or you might get that note that says, ah, because the geographic limitation or our purpose isn’t so specific anymore. We’ve expanded beyond that and we need to fix it. So that that’s the first thing.

[00:06:06.24] spk_0:
Why does this matter? Well, suppose we have evolved past what our articles of incorporation say. That’s an ancient document. Yeah, it got us started. Uh, it’s outlived its usefulness. What’s the difference?

[00:07:00.84] spk_1:
Well, it’s that one document that rules all that that still is in effect. So even though it was drafted and adopted a long time ago, that is the principle document that governs what you can do. So, if you’re doing something that you’re not allowed to do in your articles, you could actually be subject to a lawsuit that says you are operating and diverting charitable assets that were intended for this purpose. Which was your article in the Articles of Incorporation and now using it for another purpose. So that’s, that’s the big thing to, to, to worry about in terms of operating outside of your articles. How much is this enforced? Probably not very much absent a complaint from somebody, but if you have an unhappy board member or an unhappy donor that takes a look at the articles or an unhappy thunder, um, that can get you into some trouble. And it probably shows you that the very, very most basic step in your due diligence on your homework about making sure your organization is run properly. You missed. Um, and that could be a sign of other problems. So you want to fix that if it’s if it’s a problem, don’t lose too much sleep over it, but identify it and fix it if necessary.

[00:07:40.64] spk_0:
Alright, so you mentioned funders, I assume this is such a basic document. And we uh, you lawyers, me former lawyer would call them your organic documents because they are your your origin. This and the next one we’re gonna talk about your bylaws. Um, so these are, these are commonly asked for by by, by foundations or other other institutional funders,

[00:08:02.44] spk_1:
I wouldn’t necessarily say commonly, but they’re usually publicly available. Um, and so that means that anybody could ask for it and you would have to give it to them or more often it’s just available on the Secretary of State’s website or something where you could just alright file, you

[00:08:08.64] spk_0:
want to, you want to avoid embarrassment there too, if you like that. Um, What about financial purposes? Would would banks if you were opening up some kind of credit relationship or something, might they ask for your articles of incorporation?

[00:09:37.54] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s not so uncommon for a bank to take a look to see your formation document. They’re not going to be sort of regulating whether you’re operating within your purpose or not. But one thing to think about is that if a donor gives to you, and let’s say your purpose was to feed those experiencing homelessness in new york city. Um, and then 10 years later, oh, by the way, you want to turn into an arts organization that supports the opera in Manhattan. Um, you could do that by amending your articles and if you do something drastic like that, if, if your mission has evolved over time, quite distinct from what you originally planned and you never bothered fixing your articles, that could be seen as a serious breach and diversion of charitable assets. So a donor that donated to you would have expected you to be in compliance with your articles and may have donated based on that reliance that you’re helping the homeless rather than supporting the opera. And that’s another thing you need to avoid. So if you were raising funds under the old purpose, the funds that you raised are still stuck on that purpose, you can’t deploy those assets for a brand new purpose that you never informed, um, the government agency that has your secretary, your articles of incorporation filed, um, you can’t divert it for other purposes.

[00:10:00.84] spk_0:
Okay. And that’s, that’s probably the Secretary of State. Uh, well, it varies, I shouldn’t say, probably it’s right. Secretary of State in some states, some states, it’s the Attorney General’s Office has a charities bureau, that might be the office in some places.

[00:10:24.24] spk_1:
Yeah, So the Secretary of State or division of corporations or something like that would be the ones that are looking at your articles on the formation and then amending it. So they’re kind of a ministerial body. The Attorney General’s usually are your charities regulator. So they would be the ones that say you’re not, you’re using charitable assets for the wrong purpose.

[00:10:33.94] spk_0:
Okay, right. Because you are incorporated as a not for profit corporation in your state. So that’s why Gene, that’s why you’re saying you folks are incorporated as that in that way. So that’s why it would be whatever agency that regulates the corporations in your state,

[00:10:48.24] spk_1:
Right? That’s that’s how you would fix the articles and why you want to check check, because anybody else may be able to pull those articles from that, that department,

[00:11:38.34] spk_0:
you’re, you’re a nonprofit corporation, yep. Under state law, it’s time for a break. Turn to Communications, The Chronicle of philanthropy, The new york Times, The Wall Street Journal, usa Today stanford Social Innovation Review, the Washington post, the Hill Cranes, nonprofit quarterly Forbes Market Watch. That’s where turned to clients have gotten exposure. Do you want that kind of exposure Turn to has the relationships that can make it happen? Turn hyphen two dot c o. Your story is their mission. All right. So I mentioned, uh, the second check of our five is your bylaws remind folks what the purpose of the bylaws are and what are we looking for here?

[00:14:33.14] spk_1:
The bylaws are pretty much the instruction manual for how your organization is governed by governed. I mean, sort of board of directors, how they operate, how they meet, who are the officers of the organization? What authority do they have? What committees do they have? Um, and so really are more specific than the articles of incorporation, although they have to be consistent with the articles because again, the articles rule all. Um, but in an hour you won’t be able to review your whole bylaws. But what I suggest here in that one hour audit is check the provisions on how directors are selected. So there may be a regular election process where the board is called self perpetuating the board elects its own successors. But oftentimes organizations will forget to elect their directors. You know, when their term ends. That might say the term is two years or three years, um, and they just let directors keep serving until they want to resign. Well, that’s a problem. Um, so making sure that you are fulfilling the requirements uh, about director elections is really important. And sometimes directors are selected through other methods. They might be appointed or designated by another party or an individual. And that’s pretty common in private foundations, a little less common in public charities. But if you have those type of provision in your bylaws, you want to make sure that the person who is appointing or designating them is actually doing so. Uh, and you want to make sure that you’re sort of following all the provisions about, well, how elections are supposed to be run if they’re nominating processes or anything else, if you’re not complying with those, get rid of them. Um, and, and state exactly how you are electing directors. And and that’s that’s what you should really check, because if you enter into a big transaction, like a merger or you’re going to get into a big lease, oftentimes, the other party may want to see your bylaws. Um, and you are making representations in that contract of saying that we are in compliance with all of our organizational documents, uh, and by not checking whether you are or not, especially on the selection of directors, which is maybe the most important thing in your bylaws. Um, that’s that’s a huge red flag and they let the other party off the hook to be able to cancel that contract that you entered into and kick you out if it’s a lease or blow the merger up. So you want to make sure if you’re making those type of representations that you are compliant, and again, it’s just basic compliance. That’s one of the, you know, top five, I would say, to make sure your directors are regularly elected. So you want to make sure you cover your bases just to look like a good corporate citizen.

[00:15:03.34] spk_0:
And part of what you’ll find in the Bye laws is how to amend the bylaws. So if you find that you’re not complying with what the bylaws are. Either I get you either amend the bylaws to, to the way you are practicing now or conform your practice to what the bylaws says. But but if you need to amend the bylaws in the by laws, that should say how to amend them right with some majority or other vote of the board members, I presume.

[00:15:24.14] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. So if it’s really simple, it’ll say you can amend it by action of the board, but there are some complicated amendment provisions as well. So now we’re digging a little deeper. So if we do need to amend it, we’re going to go more than an hour on our overall legal review. Okay? Yeah. It is something you’re going to need to do and you want to check in that case. If you can get, if you have the resources to afford a lawyer, can get a pro bono lawyer, have them help you with the amendment to the bylaws. That’s a pretty major action.

[00:16:02.34] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Well, yeah, but we’re just that were the exploratory state. This is an audit. We’re not, we’re not doing the corrective actions were preparing. We’re preparing our auditor’s report. So we know we know we’re uh we we’re okay. Sleeping soundly. We’re not we don’t have any time bombs that we’re not aware of. The unknown unknowns. We don’t have any of those because we’re digging. Okay? But then if you need to go further beyond the the hour, you probably should read all your by laws to make sure that everything you’re doing is in compliance with what you say you’re supposed to be doing.

[00:16:17.94] spk_1:
Yeah. And, you know, even before you hire a lawyer, it would be a great idea for cost efficiency to figure out what you actually do that’s compliant with the bylaws and wherever you’re not compliant. So you can just make that list for the lawyer to say, oh, we haven’t been doing this. Can you help us fix it?

[00:16:48.14] spk_0:
Okay. Right. And then, Right. And there are gonna be provision of state law, right? That are going to govern some of the actions, depending on what they are. All right. That’s where we get too much in the weeds. Okay. That’s why you need. That’s why it’s good to have some help. Either paid or pro bono. So, you know, you’re complying with state law if you need to amend your bylaws.

[00:16:50.74] spk_1:
That’s right.

[00:16:58.84] spk_0:
Okay. Cool. I say I’m trainable. I’m training through the years. I’ve picked up some things from you. Um, All right. What’s our what’s our number three of five?

[00:17:25.34] spk_1:
So number three is because fundraising is so important, of course, for for non profit organizations, you want to make sure that you are helping your donors as well. And if you don’t have the right language and your donor receipt, a donor might not be able to take a charitable contribution deduction if audited and might get it reversed on them. So it’s really important to know what you need to put in a donation receipt.

[00:17:32.64] spk_0:
Okay. Um, and we know that, uh, for donations of $250 or more, that’s when, that’s when you have to issue the receipt.

[00:19:06.04] spk_1:
Yes. So that is for for donors, the donor might need just a check, you know, their, their return check for, or a copy of the check for a donation of $100 until they take a deduction for that may be enough. But if it is $250 or more, they need a special receipt coming back from the charity. Uh, and in that receipt, of course, it’s, you know, the name of the donor and the amount donated. And if there’s non cash stuff, a description of that stuff. But what’s key is there has to be a specific sentence in there that says something to the effect of, um, no goods or services were provided by the organization in return for this contribution. Um, or if there was something that was given back to the, to the donor in exchange, that wasn’t just very trivial. And what lawyers called the minimus jargon jail there, but uh, for something so so trivial and small, like a little sticker or something, you don’t have to value that. But if it’s something like a ticket to a concert, um, it’s kind of like the same type of receipt for those of you out there that attend a gala event and you get the chicken dinner that comes with your, you know, uh, Attendance and you spend $100 on a ticket, you get some sort of receipt that comes back to you saying Thank you for your $100 by the way, $25 with the value of your chicken dinner. So you can get a charitable contribution deduction of up to $75. So that’s the same type of thing that you would expect here.

[00:20:00.94] spk_0:
The other, the other place this plays out a lot is uh schools with sporting events. When people make a donation and maybe in exchange for their donation, they get a ticket package of some value. So you have to report that reveal that ticket value in your receipt or your acknowledgement letter. The other thing we didn’t mention is okay, Okay. Um also the date of gift, which which becomes important at the end of the year. Some, you know, some last minute december 30 december 31 gifts might not get processed until early january, but the gift was received On December 30 or 31st. So you want to make that? Make that clear?

[00:20:54.04] spk_1:
Yeah. Absolutely. And the I. R. S. Has a publication. If you if you google I. R. S. Sort of donor receipt, you’ll probably find the publication that tells you exactly what elements that you should include on a receipt. And when it’s triggered, we talked about $250 or more. There’s also something called the quid pro quo, which we talked about as well. The chicken dinner type contribution. So there’s certain elements that need to be put in depending upon that gift. And what else comes back to the donor in return. Just take a quick look at that but make sure your donor received has that language if nothing is returned back to the donor that it actually states that because in every legal case where the I. R. S. Tries to deny a deduction and the donor fights it, this could sometimes be for like a million bucks or two million or $10 million. The IRS always wins because the plain language of the statute says if you don’t have this language you don’t get a deduction and it’s hard to fight. Even if you think for moral reasons of course they gave this gift and they should get a deduction and it’s just one little sentence or phrase that’s missing. That’s ridiculous. But that’s the law.

[00:23:26.04] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two Mr cooper. If you were a fast listener last week, you would have listened on monday and you would have heard a nonprofit radio with an inappropriate Tony is take two. I made a inappropriate joke about drug addiction and boasted about privilege without bothering to acknowledge it. If you heard that show that had that version of tony state too, I’m sorry you had to listen to that. I regret that I recorded it. I thank the team at N 10 and Amy Sample Award for Pointing out the inappropriate Tony’s take 2 to me. They did it on monday by Tuesday morning. There was a new version of nonprofit radio with a different Tony is take two. I hope it never happens again. If it does, I hope you and your fellow listeners. Well, let me know that is tony state too. Now, back to your 5.1. Our legal audit. The publication you’re referring to is uh, 526. It’s, it’s written, it is very, really, very valuable. Um, It’s written for donors to tell them what they need to substantiate. But nonprofits can use it to make sure that they’re giving their donors what they need to make the substantiation. So, uh, you’re right. It’s online it’s publication 526 and it it goes through all the rules that your donors have to follow. So you can help them by reading that right by checking that out as well.

[00:23:27.70] spk_1:
And there’s a little brochure to. That’s a summary of the things that we talked about which is even shorter so at least use that.

[00:24:29.04] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah 5 26 is pretty long but it’s got a link herbal or linked table of contents to, so there’s there’s some help. The I. R. S. Is I mean the folks are trying to do their jobs. I always I always feel bad for the I. R. S. I don’t know that’s a tough job, beleaguered agencies and nobody wants to pay them or do what they nobody wants to be uh questioned by them. People’s hearts race when they get an envelope from them, you know? But overall I mean I think for as broad as their work is I credit them and I think I think the I. R. S. Is I think they’re doing a good job as best they can with being having the reputation that they have and all this being so politicized through the years and etcetera. So I’ve never been audited though too. So maybe if I had been privately audited maybe maybe my opinion of the I. R. S. Would be different. I don’t know. Have you ever been audited jean?

[00:25:10.94] spk_1:
I have been when I left a big firm and opened my own firm, my income went down that first year dramatically because I left the big firm with no clients. So that triggered an audit. What are you doing? Okay. I’ll just say yeah the audit room at the I. R. S. Office is a very very depressing place where people are married. They’re scared out of their lives. It was academically it was kind of interesting for me because I had no no problems with explaining it. Um But uh yeah I could see the nerves or feel the tension in that office for both the IRS agents and the taxpayers. Okay.

[00:25:26.64] spk_0:
I’m glad you you stayed out of you stayed out of prison. Right. No fine. Okay. Okay. Just settled out. You settled uh admitted no guilt, admitted no wrongdoing and settled. All right. What’s next in our in our five points?

[00:26:45.04] spk_1:
Um So this one is kind of a little bit of a no brainer but I think just make sure you you’re standing with the I. R. S. Still says you have five oh one C. Three status. So I think it’s a good idea to check because your donors will be checking. Especially your funders will be checking. And it’s so simple to do, literally, if you’ve done it a couple times, you can do it in under a minute. Um, So the, you know, if you google I. R. S. And T. E. O. S, which stands for tax exempt organizations search. So I. R. S. Taos you’ll get the website where you just enter the organization’s name or E. I. N. And it’ll spit out a link and you link to your organization’s name and it’ll tell you if you’re five oh one C three, non or not. And whether you’re a public charity, which may be an important distinction for some organizations, a public charity would be obviously not a private foundation and not subject to all those other rules, uh, that private foundations are subject to. But if you don’t get the numbers right, you can actually tip over into private foundation status. Um So it’s an important thing for some organizations to keep track of to make sure you’re still five or once you re exempt uh And a public charity in the I. R. S. Views and that’s updated nearly weekly. So um you have a good sense of where you actually stand and again take you a minute or two minutes to find that

[00:27:00.84] spk_0:
jean. Was that like three or four years ago when tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of organizations lost their exempt status because they hadn’t filed their their nine nineties for three consecutive years. I’m sure you remember that, What was that like 34 years ago or

[00:28:19.84] spk_1:
I think it was even longer, so I think it might have been Gosh, close to seven or eight years ago. Um and about 600,000 organizations, I believe tax tax exempt status. So it was a huge number um partly because smaller some organizations just weren’t running anymore. And the I. R. S. Doesn’t know when you stop running. So they’re just on the list of on their list and they were dropped off but many were actually running and just didn’t file their nine nineties and there was no rule before that said if you miss three in a row were automatically revoking your tax exempt status and it’s done electronically so it’s no agent discretion. It just happens. Um And so it’s hard to come back from that. It is possible but it’s still important for organizations to keep track if you miss 1990 or you’re late. Don’t worry too much about it. But if you have missed two High alert that you don’t even get an extension on your third missed one, even if you apply for one, you have to file it by the May 15 deadline if you’re a calendar filer. So pay attention to that.

[00:28:50.64] spk_0:
Okay important thank you. And you know this is an easy thing you can check in a couple minutes. Uh So it’s part of your one hour audit. So just make sure that something uh something didn’t happen even if you’re you’re sure you’re filing your nine nineties, you know for for two or three minutes. Check out uh I. R. S. Tax exempt organizations search

[00:29:12.94] spk_1:
just in case it was lost in the mail and you know the I. R. S. During the covid pandemic had I think 10,000,010 million pieces of paper filings in their warehouses that somebody had to process when they started coming back so they’re delayed still on that. So it annual filings could easily have been lost. Um So double check that website just to make sure you’re you’re okay.

[00:29:24.04] spk_0:
Yeah, be good to your organization please. All right. The last one when I love go ahead.

[00:30:40.44] spk_1:
So the same way you want to check with your I. R. S. Status, you probably want to check with your state status and that can be a couple agencies. So the corporate agency that we talked about, usually the secretary of state’s office, you want to make sure your corporation is in good standing, that they usually require some sort of annual or biannual filing that that comes to them. And then the attorney general or charities regulator might be a different agency. And they may also require charity registration on an annual basis. So making sure you file with each of those agencies is really important. And there’s usually an online database for most states where you can check to see what your most recent filing was and if you’re delinquent or if you’ve been suspended, um, or even uh, in in some cases, um, terminated because of lack of filing. So if if you find that, then, you know, there’s stuff to fix and you probably need to call a lawyer at that point, um, but just check it, if you check it annually, you’ll find it’s easy again, probably once you’ve done it once, and you write down a few notes about how to access that side, it’ll only take you a few minutes to just double check both the state, usually Secretary of State, for your corporation, um status and the Attorney General, or charities regulator for your charities registration status.

[00:31:11.94] spk_0:
You want to make sure that your uh, in compliance not and for the, for the ladder of that in compliance, not only in your state, but now I’m going beyond your one hour. But, uh, that’s okay. We’ll go a little deeper. You need to be in compliance with solicitation regulations in all the states where you are soliciting donations now, I just need a car, not just you and me,

[00:31:25.34] spk_1:
and they need to call somebody like you, if that’s the case. So if they know their fundraising in multiple states are using, um, people or companies to help them fundraise in other states, they need to call someone like you and say, hey, what do we need to do to make sure that we’re in compliance with that. Other states. Rules were not incorporated there, but we’re doing business or fundraising there. What do we need to do?

[00:32:53.24] spk_0:
Right. Thank you. It’s time for a break. Send in blue. It’s an all in one digital marketing platform with tools to build end to end digital campaigns that look professional are affordable and keep you organized. They do digital campaign marketing. Most marketing software is designed for big companies and has that enterprise level price tag tisk, tisk. If you’re using those, send in blue is priced for nonprofits. It’s an easy to use marketing platform that walks you through the steps of building a campaign to try out sending blue and get a free month. Hit the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in blue. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for your 5.1. Our legal audit for for the I’m going backwards a little bit because, you know, your host is lackluster. I’m sorry. Um if we find out that we’re on a step forward, if we’re not, if we have lost our IRS 501 C3 status for some reason, what would you recommend doing?

[00:34:24.84] spk_1:
So find out the reason first of all. So if it was for failing to file 3990s in a row that’s probably the most common reason for getting your exemption revoked. Um Find out if that was actually true. Did you actually miss those filings? Did an accountant help you with them? Did some volunteer do that find out what the status is? Uh and then contact the I. R. S. To ensure that that was the actual reason and if you have filed the 19 nineties and the IRS has somehow lost it you should tell that to them. Um See if you have a like a return receipt which I always recommend if you haven’t electronically filed, make sure you have some evidence that actually got sent uh to the I. R. S. Office because that will help you. And if they had made the mistake or they lost the finding that will help them reverse the process. But if it is actually the case where you fail to file um have those filings ready to go. Some hire an accountant or somebody who can help you prepare those files, have them ready to go. And there is a reinstatement process where you actually have to Fill out the form 1023 which is the exemption application that a start up would have to file. But you’re doing it for reinstating your tax exempt status. Um So there is a process the I. R. S. Has tried to make it easier for some organizations where they just kind of missed filings but it hasn’t been like We’ve been out of compliance for 20 years,

[00:34:26.73] spk_0:
we’ve never filed. Yeah

[00:34:49.44] spk_1:
so go through that process if you can get a lawyer or an accountant to help you um, please do. So it’s while they try to make it as easy as possible. It’s still kind of complicated and there are some nuances that can help you and the sum that can hurt you. So that’s going to take a little bit longer to fix if you have to fix it. But it is for the most part fixable.

[00:34:54.44] spk_0:
If we’re going to go beyond our one hour, 55 point legal audit, what would, where would we spend more time?

[00:36:44.53] spk_1:
So there are some common areas of concern for nonprofits. I would say one of the big ones is getting your independent contractor employee distinction. Right? So knowing what the difference is, because I would say that a lot of organizations when they get into trouble, they get into trouble on that point. And on that point, volunteer borrowing members could actually be held personally liable for non payment of payroll taxes. And by that, I mean, if you determine that a worker is an independent contractor, but legally they should have been an employee, let’s say they’re working 40 hours a week and they don’t work for anyone else, and they’re doing the job that, you know, an executive director does for an organization. But you go, I don’t want to pay the payroll taxes because we can’t afford it. So we’re just going to call you an independent contractor, that’s not going to be consistent with the definition that the I. R. S. Views and the state may have their own definitions as well. Um, but the employer for an employee has to pay their portion of the payroll tax. If the payroll tax didn’t get paid, uh, then there may be a claim against the organization. And then in enforcing that, they may say this was the board’s fault, charitable assets should not be used to pay for this type of penalty because this was sort of gross negligence on this part. So board members could be out of pocket to pay for those payroll taxes if they haven’t been paid. So because withholding and paying payroll taxes, the employer shares is the employer’s duty. So be careful of that one distinction I would say is my next thing, that’s going to take longer, but it would be the next thing on my audit list. Okay.

[00:37:17.93] spk_0:
Yeah. Common misconception that if we, if we call them a contractor and we send them a 1099, then that’s what they are. And, and there’s a whole, you and I have done shows on this, there’s a whole test of, you know, do they work for the people whose equipment do they use, Who sets the hours, who sets the location of the work, Who sets the timing of the work? It’s the whole list of fact multi factor test. Uh, So it’s not just, you know, you call it a, you call them an independent contractor because you’re saving on employment taxes and uh and unemployment and and benefits that are required. It’s not it’s not that simple. So,

[00:37:32.43] spk_1:
okay, not only the I. R. S. Could be involved, but the person the worker who got misclassified could actually go after you later

[00:37:40.89] spk_0:
or your state or your state Department of Labor.

[00:38:13.52] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly. And they may have a slightly different definition of independent contractors and employees. And California is kind of this big example because they’re there sort of leading the way if you will in terms of employment rights. Um, and so they have made a much more difficult distinction, making it very hard for nonprofits to claim that they have independent contractors if they occupy the type of job that an employee would occupy. So even if it was for a limited duration of time, that may not matter anymore that they were there for three months only, but if they were an administrative assistant or an executive director, they may need to be called a temporary or part time employee and not an independent contractor anymore. So it’s gotten much, much tougher on the state level.

[00:38:40.12] spk_0:
What’s next? What in your experience, what do you see as another common problem?

[00:40:23.81] spk_1:
So not necessarily a problem. But for a way for the boards to sort of quickly get policies in place to make sure that they’re doing their job in terms of providing oversight since they’re not there every day. And you know, maybe they’re meeting once a month or once every other month. Um uh and maybe for just a couple hours. So there’s only so much that they can do. But what they can do is create some policies or have policies created that they can approve that governed the organization. And these policies, some of them are referenced in the form 9 90. And the 9 90 asks you the I. R. S. Is asking you through the 9 90 do you have these policies and if you say no, Well it used to be kind of normal awhile ago, you know, more than 10 years ago for a lot of organizations to say no, but since they started asking these questions, I think in 2000 eight maybe. Um the more often you put no the more an outlier you become because most organizations have seen these questions and said, oh if we keep saying no to this, is this going to trigger an audit risk? And the answer is probably yes. So saying yes to. We have these policies make sense. And that would be a document retention and destruction whistle blower. The Board Level Review of the Form 9 90. Um, those are really common ones that that you can incorporate really quickly. I would also add expense reimbursements. Who has signing authority. Can anybody in your organization signed a contract or sign a check or only the executive director? What if they’re not around? So just having policies rather than the board going, you guys figure it out. Having a policy in place is really important for a board to do gift acceptance, another one.

[00:41:03.31] spk_0:
Gift acceptance. Yeah, right. Uh, there’s another angle to this too, which is the, uh, the charity rating agencies, um, Charity Navigator. Uh, well, uh, the old guidestar now it’s merged and it’s Candid merged with the Foundation Center Candid. But those rating agencies also ask ask about the standard policies like whistleblower document retention, etcetera. Yeah, it’s a proxy conflict, conflict of interest, border conflict of interest, another another common commonly required policy.

[00:41:11.35] spk_1:
Absolutely. And I’m sorry, I missed that one because I think that’s the most important, one of all of them, outside of the articles and bylaws that I

[00:41:28.31] spk_0:
got, I got Eugene. All right, No problem. So, yeah. So aside from the I. R. S asking charity rating agencies ask also for these basic policies. All

[00:41:41.71] spk_1:
right. And it’s a proxy for them to say is this organization well governed. Does it have a good board of directors in place? And if you keep answering no, we don’t have these policies, then they’re going to assume that you’re not very well covered. Yeah,

[00:42:03.20] spk_0:
it’s like someone reading your bylaws or your articles of incorporation. You know, somebody might get a wild hair and decided to go read your articles of incorporation and then see that they are out of date. Or you might, you know, you might have your bylaws disclosed on your website. But some disgruntled person or just even some uh, neutral person might see that, you know, you don’t, you don’t conduct yourself the way your documents that you’re supposed to, you know, it’s embarrassing at the at the best. It’s embarrassing.

[00:42:14.50] spk_1:
Yeah. And for for older folks like me, tony when somebody has in their bylaws like you can deliver notice by telegraph. Not a great sign for some of the younger funders may be considering your organization.

[00:42:35.90] spk_0:
All right. All right. Or we can even update it and make it still bad facts. Notice noticed by facts. Facsimile.

[00:42:38.83] spk_1:
I still have a hotmail account so I’m okay with facts. All

[00:42:43.89] spk_0:
right. But you don’t use your fat. You don’t have a fax machine, do you?

[00:42:46.57] spk_1:
I still do

[00:42:47.63] spk_0:
you do you get any traffic on it?

[00:42:50.20] spk_1:
Um I I use effects as as my primary. So I have a paper printing facts as a backup. But exit the primary.

[00:43:09.10] spk_0:
Remember if ax you used to send people would send documents to the phone number right at like the phone number at the fax dot com. So that they would print on your machine. Wasn’t that isn’t how it works.

[00:43:17.90] spk_1:
So this effects is um they sent a fax to my fax machine. But I have my fax machine turned off and it sends me an email of what the facts would look like.

[00:43:30.10] spk_0:
Okay. Okay, well, that’s OK. So I’m starting. But there there was a there was in fact used to, somebody could send an email to your fax machine through the phone number at fox dot com and it would print on your machine.

[00:43:34.10] spk_1:
Yeah, I think that’s right. But

[00:43:35.44] spk_0:
You’ve updated your, you updated sometime around 1997, I guess

[00:43:40.32] spk_1:
one. Some level of

[00:43:41.57] spk_0:
you get an email now. Congratulations. You’re getting emails. All right. Uh,

[00:43:46.70] spk_1:
my anything don’t even answer emails now. It has to be text not responding.

[00:43:57.30] spk_0:
Right. Another year. It’ll just be if it’s not a Tiktok then forget about it. They don’t know you. All right. We’re gonna leave it there, jean. So we talked about our five points. You’re talking about going a little further. If you’re if you if you want the suma cum laude of legal audits, you can go a couple of steps further. Thank you very much. Gene

[00:44:12.79] spk_1:
great to be with you Tony. Thank you.

[00:44:30.29] spk_0:
My pleasure. Thank you, Jeanne Takagi Neo is the firm, the nonprofit and exempt organizations law group in SAn Francisco subscribe to this blog, nonprofit law blog dot com. It is wildly popular and jean is at g attack. Thanks again jean.

[00:44:32.19] spk_1:
Thanks tony

[00:45:27.59] spk_0:
next week. More from 21. NTC, the nonprofit technology conference. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by sending Blue the only all in one digital marketing platform empowering non profits to grow. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in Blue, Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chabon’s Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein, thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty You’re with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for January 11, 2021: PPP 2.0

My Guest:

Gene Takagi: PPP 2.0

Gene Takagi

Gene Takagi returns with the ins-and-outs of the second round of Paycheck Protection Program help for your nonprofit. He’s our legal contributor and managing attorney at NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group.

 

 

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[00:01:50.04] spk_1:
non Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite heh abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of Vibe bro Sis, if you infected me with the idea that you missed this week’s show P P P to zero Jean Takagi returns with the ins and outs of the second round of paycheck protection program. Help for your non profit. He’s our legal contributor and managing attorney at Neo. The non profit and exempt organizations law firm Antonis Take two. I’m still optimistic, were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives. Prospect to donor, Simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant demo and a free month. What a pleasure! Genuine pleasure to welcome back Jean Takagi. You know him, for God’s sake, but let’s do the formalities he deserves. Gina is our legal contributor and managing attorney of Neo, the non profit and Exempt Organizations Law group in San Francisco. He edits the wildly popular non profit law blogged dot com, and there’s the American Bar Association’s 2016 outstanding non profit lawyer. He’s a part time lecturer at Columbia University. The firm is that neo law group dot com, and he’s at G Tack g T a k. Welcome back, Jean. Happy New Year.

[00:01:52.04] spk_0:
Happy New Year, tony. Great to be back with you. It’s

[00:01:54.34] spk_1:
good to have you. Thank you. It’s outstanding, lawyer. Now, that’s five years old now.

[00:01:59.14] spk_0:
Yeah, I think that that probably has to go down the wayside.

[00:02:25.54] spk_1:
Take that. Actually, Is it more embarrassing now then? It always has done What? What’s he done in the past five years? Exactly. I’ll take that. Alright, we’ll take that out from starting next time. All right, Um, so the paycheck protection program is is back version 2.0. Um, what what’s your what’s your overview of it? The p p p re ducks.

[00:04:28.64] spk_0:
So it’s a good thing, of course, and it comes in sort of within the broader context of a kn appropriations act that’s to help stimulate the economy. And we know how hard co vid and, um, all of the shutdowns that have been caused by the coronavirus, all of the health care issues we have presented a huge challenge for our economy and for the nonprofit sector as a whole. I think back in August, The Washington Post had written some article that suggested one third of nonprofits could ultimately shut down at the end of this crisis. I think that might have been a little overblown. Hopefully, the vaccine is going to contribute. Thio Um, the development of several vaccines contributes to a little bit more of a recovery, but we still seem to have a long slog through this. And that’s why more money needed to get out to stimulate the economy and particularly nonprofits who are impacted two ways. One by just less money coming in. Less revenues, less donations. Andi the greater need for so many people who need the service’s of non profit. So the good part of the second kind of draw of the P P P loans is that there’s more money been made available. Um, it’s still not enough in my personal opinion, and hopefully we’ll see more, but 11 of the really good things about this second draw, the P P P loans is that you can go in for a double dip now, So if you are a kn organization. One of the I believe it’s 180,000 non profits that applied and received the first round of loans. Who came, actually, which came into parts? Um,

[00:04:29.30] spk_1:
180,000. Sounds low to me. I’m not I’m saying that I heard it was more. But of the 1.51 point six million or so only 180,000.

[00:04:40.14] spk_0:
Yeah, I believe that’s the number that that I I have that that actually received loans

[00:04:45.13] spk_1:
12% or something like that.

[00:04:47.94] spk_0:
Yeah, on dhe. You know, so out of those, the original set of loans under the Cares Act on day one of the amendments to that so you could only come in once, so you get one loan out of them. You can’t go back in for another loan. Um, so this second draw actually allows a nonprofit that took out a loan, used it up, or is going to use it up to come back in for a second loan. And that’s really important with the covert crisis dragging out.

[00:05:47.84] spk_1:
So, um, let’s see, just I know you You introduced a second raw, but let’s let’s talk about the folks who maybe did not get a p p p low in the first time. So that so for nonprofits, That s so they they certainly are eligible this time to, um, let’s talk about like, you have to have fewer than 500 employees, which I’m sure all our listeners do. Um What who else is what? Like what else you have to do to be eligible for for a loan first time through.

[00:05:50.64] spk_0:
So I think that the numbers actually 300 or fewer on that

[00:05:54.93] spk_1:
isn’t that for the, isn’t it? For the second draw?

[00:06:59.74] spk_0:
Yeah, I think this whole thing is sort of called. I’m sorry. You’re right, tony. So that that refers to the second draw for for, um, organizations that have received a P P P loan. So it’s 300 or fewer. The original draw was 500 or fewer. Um, and demonstrating at least a 25% reduction in gross revenues between the same quarters in 2020 and 2021. So you took a look at the first quarter. You measure first quarter versus first quarter, second quarter versus second quarter. You can’t mix and match. So the same quarter in two years if you experienced at least 25% reduction in gross revenues. And that’s how you had reported in the 1990 year gross revenues figure, then you would be eligible for for that, that second draw. And I believe that’s the standard for the first draws. Well, um, and it’s subject to a maximum of 2.5 times. The average monthly payroll costs up to $2 million in this round.

[00:07:10.94] spk_1:
Okay, Okay. And those payroll costs, you can choose, right? A period between eight weeks and 24 weeks. Correct that. You want that you want to be compensated for And that and, uh okay, that you wanna be compensated for, right? So, between to two months and and six months,

[00:07:26.84] spk_0:
right, starting on the origination of the loan. Okay. Yeah.

[00:07:37.44] spk_1:
Okay. But but to be eligible, you have to demonstrate a decrease in gross revenue of 25% or more. Correct. Incomparable quarters. Okay. Okay. Now for folks who again, this first draw the first time through it at this point so far, um, they should be going to their bank. Right? You need a bank. That’s that’s s B A Small Business association approved, but it seems like your bank will be the place to start at least looking for where you can find a lender.

[00:07:59.74] spk_0:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s that’s the place to go to get the application forms. And yes, the S B A operates the loan through the sort of approved banks that

[00:08:09.88] spk_1:
the bank. Yeah, And in my experience, if your bank isn’t an S b a approved lender, I had heard that your your bank can help you find one. You can also just search for them in your area. But you might be able to get a referral from your own bank if they’re not a S B A lender.

[00:08:28.06] spk_0:
Yeah, and you can, I think, find that out on the Web as well. If

[00:09:18.64] spk_1:
it’s time for a break, turn to communications. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times You wanna be in papers like that? What about CBS Market Watch? The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Turn two has the relationships with outlets like these. So when they’re looking for experts on charitable giving non profit trends for philanthropy, they call turn to turn two calls, you turn hyphen two dot CEO now back to P P p. To point out now all the all the money you get, even though it’s called paycheck Protection Program does not have to go to a paycheck. There’s other things that you can spend what up to 40% on

[00:10:53.34] spk_0:
that’s That’s exactly the number tony. So 60% has to be payroll related expenses that that you are using the funds for but up to 40% could be used for other things. And in the first round of the Cares Act sort of payroll protection plan, program loans or forgivable loans, they had things like mortgage, certain qualified mortgage payments and rent and utility expenses. They didn’t offer a lot more. So this round, this second draw, whether you’re taking it for the first time or not, I’m just going to refer to it is the second draw. Okay, he BP loans. You can use it for four other covered expense areas, and they include operations expenditures, which sort of refer to software and cloud computing service’s for businesses and have to do with payroll H R. Accounting all of those things. So if you need that, you can use it for those things property damage costs if they happened in 2020 and they were not covered by insurance and that might be related to looting or other public disturbances. UM, covered supplier costs which are for purchase of goods that are essential to the operations of the business, generally made pursuant to a contract that was in effect prior to the covered period of the eight or 24 weeks. Ah, nde covered worker protection expenditures, so that’s really important. So that includes the PP, eat of personal protective equipment, face masks and everything else, and also operating and capital expenditures that air related to meeting worker or customer safety requirements. So if you need to put barriers up, you know those plexi barriers between things like that,

[00:11:22.27] spk_1:
maybe upgrade your h v a c so that Z Okay,

[00:11:23.04] spk_0:
okay, so you want to take a look at what the requirements are in your area. If you need to spend on that, um, this is also going to be available for those type of expenses up to 40% so again, 60%. This is mostly focused on payroll in keeping people in jobs. Andi organizations operational, but 40% realizing that you do have some other costs that you need to have to be able to run the business. It’s not just employees, so this was a little bit more thoughtful in sort of creating that that those uses for P p p loan funds.

[00:12:39.04] spk_1:
Let’s talk about forgiveness because that’s a big advantage to these p p p loans that if you do it right, your loan could be 100% forgiven if you do it right. So what do you have to do right now? I know we don’t know about, like, forgiveness forms that even for the first round. I mean, I in my business got a P p p low in the first round, and I’m still waiting for guidance on forgiveness. It Z S B A has gone back and forth many times, and so my bank doesn’t even have the forms ready yet for forgiveness from the first loans, which I got like in March or April or something. So but there are guidelines about what you’re supposed, how you’re supposed to spend to be eligible for the give nous for the forgiveness when the forms and the process do ultimately come out. So what’s What’s what is s b a saying there,

[00:12:56.34] spk_0:
So yeah, first, just a comment on whether we’re going to see those forms out soon

[00:13:04.68] spk_1:
so we could get the loan forgiveness from from March or April. Yeah,

[00:13:09.24] spk_0:
yeah, eso It’s been a long time. The S b A actually has some forms out, and they did come up with a little bit of guidance in December. But the individual financial institutions, the banks haven’t yet developed all of their own forms on DSO. Yes, it’s a combination of looking at both of those forms, and we haven’t seen much happening there across all banks. Yeah, so that I think will be coming pretty soon, but we haven’t seen it just yet.

[00:14:03.94] spk_1:
I guess I should be kinder to the S B A to I think overall, they managed a new emergency program pretty well. Eso you know, clearly their priority was getting the money out, not worrying about the forgiveness at the back end. So, uh, not trying to be harsh against SB A. They’re working under short deadlines and people in great need, So they focused on what’s more important getting money out. All right, so what do they say about how you should spend if you wanna have your loan forgiven.

[00:14:08.44] spk_0:
So one of the things is what we talked about earlier. About that 60 40 split. Well, that is the requirement for loan forgiveness. So if you don’t want the loan to be forgiven, you don’t actually have to look at that 60 40 split, right? You could just pay back the loan at the interest rate, which I believe is 1%. Um, but I think nonprofits have taken out this loan, have taken it out with the very intent that it be forgivable loan and to use it for those purposes. So in order for it to be forgivable against, 60% must be used for payroll related expenses and 40% for those other covered categories that I mentioned. So, you know, the mortgage, the rent utilities and those four new categories that came out with this second draw that would apply only to the second draw amount. So amounts coming out of this 900 billion that that was part of this new act that came off this new relief act. Um,

[00:15:25.04] spk_1:
you wanna make sure you keep your documentation so you can prove when it does come time for the forgiveness application, because you have to apply that you can prove that you spent the money on the bona fide expenses that are allowed. And you didn’t spend more than six more than 40% on the on the non payroll. Correct? Yeah, to be documentation.

[00:16:20.94] spk_0:
And what I’m hearing back is from the first application, which you’ll soon see tony. The reports that they asked for are pretty complicated on dhe tough, and they’ve gone back and forth on like what to include and what not to include. But it can be pretty tough. The good thing is about this second draw. This new act that that was signed into law the just a few weeks ago at the end of the year is that if the loan was for 150,000 up to $300,000 or less, it’s going to be a one page one. So they’re going to make it super easy, and it’s really gonna you know, they haven’t released what that form exactly looks like. But they said what they’re going to ask for is the number of employees that you were able to retain the estimated amount spent on payroll costs. So did you meet that 60% basically, the total loan value and an attestation? So you basically you’re signing saying, I attest that I complied with all the requirements of the P P P loan program. So rather than documenting every single thing out, if it’s $150,000 or less, get most of the listeners. They’re probably going to fall into that category. Um, they’re going to be able to do with the one page form. But there are several larger nonprofits that they’re gonna have to file the more complicated forms. And to get you know, to your point, really good records really critically important for this because you do want to get this loan. Forget

[00:19:54.44] spk_1:
it’s time for Tony’s Take two. Yes, I’m still optimistic. Even after what happened last Wednesday at our nation’s capital and the Capital building I still am. The optimism is for the whole year. It’s not just for the first 10 days, so I still feel good. Look, they’re already started arresting people for the trespassing and the unlawful entry into the Capitol. They’ve already arrested folks. So and there’s gonna be many more coming, so that gives a little bit of short term, uh, solace. I think that people face justice for their transgressions against our capital. But beyond that, beyond that, I just look forward to new years and I am feeling good that the country will be in a better place. The world will be in a better place this year. Then it was last year 2020. I mean, think about the pandemic to look how much further we’ve come in. Just what? The past 4 to 6 weeks with vaccines rolling out. Okay, Not as fast as they were supposed to have, but vaccines air rolling out. I think it’s gonna be a good year. 2021. I say. It’s gonna be a good year. That is tony Steak, too. Let us return to P P. P to zero with Jean Takagi. There’s something that you and I talked about, um, earlier in 2020 when the first paycheck protection program loans were offered was it was a little complicated Then if you had gotten another kind of loan, the e ideal economic injury disaster loan and you if you gotta an advance on that, which I’m not sure those advances really went out the way they were supposed to, but they were supposed to be, like, up to $10,000. You get in, like, within three days for the e i d l. But I know in my own case, I applied for that. But, um, didn’t didn’t it didn’t end up really being needed. And it was nowhere near the three days. Um, it was more like three months, and it all just came at 11 time. That’s a separate. But so that was related to you know that advance if you if you got it was related to paycheck protection program forgiveness, the S B A. Wasn’t gonna allow you toe be forgiven on ah e ideal loan advance. Now, you don’t have to worry about that anymore, right?

[00:19:57.31] spk_0:
Yeah, that’s I mean, that’s one really good thing about this

[00:20:01.09] spk_1:
two minutes set up for something that doesn’t matter anymore.

[00:21:00.74] spk_0:
But it is important because some some of your listeners may be out there thinking, Oh, I can’t You know I can’t get this. Um uh, advance if I want loan forgiveness on Now it’s like, No, you can you can get both. So that’s really important that they repeal that former restriction on DSO. Now you can get both. Just a reminder for that the ideal stands for economic injury disaster loan on dhe It is alone, except when it’s called an ideal grant, Um, or advance. In which case, the idea is is that you’re going toe Qualify for it If you’re located in a low income community, you suffered an economic loss greater than 30%. So this is a little bit more stringent. And the second drop TPP loans

[00:21:04.31] spk_1:
25%.

[00:21:05.09] spk_0:
Yeah, and the same requirement that you employ not more than 300 employees. So it’s it’s a different program. I misspoke earlier and talked about $900 billion being the P P. P program, but that 900 billion was actually the total

[00:21:19.48] spk_1:
that was the fullest

[00:21:47.34] spk_0:
package. Yeah, eso of that 284 billion roughly was for the P P P program. Second draw loans that were coming out again, Whether you’re taking it for the first time or second time again on 20 billion for the e I. D. L grants those ran out very quickly on DSP. A page has still not been updated. Web page has still not been updated. So it will currently say we’ve run out. We don’t have these available, but we’re waiting for the update as a result of this new act, so you have to just keep looking for it.

[00:21:56.04] spk_1:
Okay? Okay. The money is there for the the ideal grants,

[00:22:10.54] spk_0:
but it’s 20 billion versus 284 billion for the P P P second draw loan. So it is a smaller pool of money. So just toe, be aware that that yeah, you’ll have to go in pretty quick if you’re going to qualify

[00:22:21.04] spk_1:
in the second drawer. Loans got, um, expanded with 501 C six is now now eligible. Which they weren’t before.

[00:22:31.34] spk_0:
Yeah, you know, I think non profit that’s really wanted, like a za sector. They said, why is it restricted? Just to 501 c three. There’s lots of other types of nonprofits that air doing important work here that are going to get tremendously impacted and small businesses are allowed toe sort of get the benefits of these loans. What about like chambers of commerce, especially for, like small regional areas that could really impact multiple businesses, and not just one or organizations that are focused on the travel business industry. So if you’ve got a trade association of related to travel, they can impact a broader industry and to lose them, um, could be really detrimental thio an entire industry and not just to a single business. So the idea was, let’s get other nonprofits involved or eligible as well. So 501 c six. That was kind of the lobbying for the 501 c six is specifically on. Yes, they become eligible for this P p p round A ZX well, but they have some of the same requirements, so they can’t employ more than 300 persons. But they also have some lobbying limitations. Um, that air there, so s

[00:23:42.90] spk_1:
so if you’re a C six, you gotta look closely.

[00:24:08.64] spk_0:
Yeah, and one other thing just about this and I won’t go into the details of C six. But generally speaking, um, the government said, if you are a lobbying or political like organization, that was principally into lobbying and political activities. A lot of five but one C four organization social welfare organizations would fall into that category. Um, then you are not eligible for the PP, and that remains still a restriction on participating in this. So the 51 C six is that that participate? They really they’re all sorts of lobbying number restrictions that are involved. But generally speaking, if you’re principally a lobbying organization or political action organization, you will not qualify for these

[00:24:31.91] spk_1:
and see fours are not eligible.

[00:24:34.24] spk_0:
Yeah, so by and large, yeah.

[00:24:54.84] spk_1:
Okay. There was a lot in the press about the deductibility of the expenses that you use the money for. I’m talking now about the the 40% That’s non payroll. Um, initially, you weren’t allowed to deduct what used to be deductible if you spent P p p money on it, which was kind of, Ah, a clawback. You lost the deduction. They have the money was forgiven if you did it right, but you had a but you couldn’t deduct the expenses that you spent it on. So it was like it was like giving and then taking that’s that’s been changed. Those expenses, air now deductible.

[00:26:23.41] spk_0:
Yeah. Although let’s sort of frame it to tony that most nonprofits, that we’re talking about our tax exempt in the first place so they don’t have to worry about deductions except with respect to their unrelated businesses. And so, for taxable and for taxable entities. Yeah, Or if, if a non profit does have unrelated business income resulting coming from a specific business and that gets a little bit more complicated, it is really important to know that if you receive the P P p loan and you spent money on some of those expenditures that you can actually deduct from it. So the rationale before is that the government is giving you money so you shouldn’t be able to spend it and then get another tax benefit of a deduction with it, because the government just granted that money to you. But overall, in terms of stimulating the economy, it was just too popular. And just to important to the overall goal, Thio restrict that from happening. So yes, now you can get a P P p loan and you can spend it on legitimate business expenses within that sort of that that range of qualified expenditures that we talked about and you could get a deduction for those things as well. So yeah, good point.

[00:27:39.34] spk_1:
Thank you. Thanks for clarifying to time for our last break. Quote. There’s nothing as simple as dot drives. Our executive team meets once per week to sit down and go through our dot drives pipelines. It’s fun to watch them have a healthy dialogue and to see them get excited about their numbers rising toward their goals. Sounds exciting. That drives has allowed us to take those key relationships and bring them to a deeper level. End quote. That’s Wendy Adams, director of donor engagement at Patrick Henry. Family Service is prospect to donor Simplified. Get the free demo from DOT. For listeners, there’s also a free month. Go to the listener landing page at tony dot Emma slash dot We’ve got but loads more time for P P p two. What else? What do you wanna talk about? Tpp Wise way didn’t cover.

[00:28:11.94] spk_0:
Well, I thought I’d talk about something a little bit fun just to start off with E. Sure. So there’s the three martini lunch deduction, Um, which is a kn interesting deduction. Um, but basically, you know, I think it’s been since the eighties, where that if you had a business expense and this is again mostly for for profits. But it’s one that puts a little bit of a smile on my face, although there’s some serious consequences that can flow from it. But

[00:28:14.03] spk_1:
we’ll go ahead and smile. Gene, allow yourself to smile. Yeah, you have to qualify your given unqualified smile.

[00:28:31.04] spk_0:
So since the mid eighties, I think if you are I in our separate businesses tony took somebody out, took each other out for lunch, You know, 50% would be deductible if it was a legitimate business lunch. Um Well, um, President Trump and the outgoing administration really felt important to give back um, Thio 100% deductibility. Eso business lunch is going to be deductible up to 100% for two years s. So this is sort of received the nickname the three martini lunch deduction. Um and yeah, I mean, there implications to this because obviously this will have a tax impact. And I believe the final document that put into the PDP loan in the whole stimulus package in late December with somewhere around 15,000 pages, So I can’t imagine that somebody has read all of this yet. Um, but the impact the economic impact of this will eventually be sort of a judge. But this could cost, you know, the government a billion or $2 billion in lost revenues. So it does have implications there.

[00:30:00.14] spk_1:
Can this also have impact for, um, employee of a non profit? Who lets, say, does a ah business lunch and their employer does not reimburse that expense. So then when they’re deducting, they can then deduct that expense if they itemize, and it would now be fully deductible instead of only 50% deductible. Is that is that true for non profit employees?

[00:30:32.64] spk_0:
I don’t believe tony. So generally I think, you know, the best interest would would be for the non profit to reimburse, employ. Um, but if the employee is going thio state that it was, ah necessary business expense, it’s going to be a little bit more difficult. Thio do so for them. And I don’t think that they would get um

[00:30:33.23] spk_1:
Yeah, like if they took a donor, Suppose they took a donor to a lunch?

[00:31:18.14] spk_0:
Yeah, for that again, I would think it would be the nonprofits responsibility. Thio to to reimburse them if they individually took them out. I’m just wondering how that business expense would work out where they don’t have a sole proprietorship. You know, as I think about it a little bit more, tony, I guess the rules would still apply. So it is just a question about whether they could get the deduction in the first place. They can get the deduction in the first place, and it’s possible that the 100% rule might apply. But I’m not sure that it would in this case, because it’s not necessarily their business expense. So I don’t think I have anything definitive for you, but it’s kind of like, you know, the auto expense deduction. So if you know if your business

[00:31:28.31] spk_1:
car for business purposes right, you get 57 cents per mile or something like that, whatever it is,

[00:31:34.92] spk_0:
yeah, gets adjusted every year. But if you’re doing it for ah, non profit organization, your deduction rate is much, much smaller. It’s I can’t remember the number, but it’s like 14 cents, um, so you don’t get the same benefits when you’re doing it for another organization?

[00:31:53.82] spk_1:
Is that for a volunteer or that applies to employees. Also,

[00:31:57.84] spk_0:
it would apply to anybody who’s taking that deduction on their own s. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Best for the non profit to reimburse.

[00:32:34.54] spk_1:
Yeah. Spitballing. Okay, um, I’m glad you’re smiling over the three martini lunch. That’s good. Let’s go. What? Well, we could cynically say that was a gesture A KN award for focus on Well, doesn’t have to be Wall Street, but we could be most cynical and say it was for the president’s Wall Street friends to now deduct all there all their fancy meals in New York City at 100% instead of only half.

[00:32:40.54] spk_0:
Yeah, that’s right. And I I think that’s the cynical viewpoint

[00:32:50.54] spk_1:
e. There’s no question of that. That’s time. But then there’s the

[00:32:51.25] spk_0:
other side of that. Well, can stimulate the restaurant

[00:33:11.14] spk_1:
well, and they stimulate the restaurant economy. Yes, industry. And also there are small businesses. Everybody does not own a Wall Street business in New York City. Of course. All right. Onley only only holds 80% true. Um what? Anything else? Anything else that you think non profit need to know about P p p two point. Oh,

[00:33:16.64] spk_0:
well, I think out of the same kind of act where the pee pee pee loans came out of was important provisions regarding the charitable contribution deduction. So as long as we were talking about deductions, I thought it might be important to know that

[00:33:30.57] spk_1:
for your donors,

[00:33:48.44] spk_0:
Yeah, so for donors. So when we talked about deductions and itemizers, you know, as a result of the Trump Tax Act, um, some years ago, now a tw the start of his administration, we ended up with having, you know, itemizers, um, mhm being reduced from, I think, something like 35% of all taxpayers, down to about 10% of taxpayers. Meaning that 90% of taxpayers would not get the benefit of a charitable contribution deduction because they would take the standard deduction rather than itemize. It would be better for them. So the vast majority of taxpayers, the math, vast majority of small organization donors are not going to get a tax benefit from giving a charitable contribution anymore. So, you know, we’re still relying on them to do it because they believe in the organization and its mission and the people there, and you know what it’s doing but the tax benefits not going to be there anymore until the cares Act provisions last year that said, Well, even if you’re non itemizing, you can deduct up to $300 Is an individual $600 for a married joint filer? Um, above the line, basically. So you can you can get that deduction even if you’re not itemizing.

[00:34:55.48] spk_1:
Take the standard deduction, but you can add another up to $300 per person,

[00:36:21.13] spk_0:
Right? So what this bill does is it Extended it out. So now we will. The previous bill was going Thio run out and we’ve got now an extension of this for another year, so that is a good thing. So that was only gonna last through 2020 Now, Now we have it for 2021 A ZX well, and and, uh, another thing or are somewhat related thio that are just sort of other relief provision. The measure provides an additional $300 per week and unemployment benefits through March 14th is gonna be helpful. Um, there’s a moratorium on evictions that was going to expire December 31st, 2020. And now that’s, um, uh, going to be extended out for a month. Not very much, but every little bit helps right on $25 billion available in additional federal funding for assistance to renters. So we will see if that if that actually plays out. And finally, there’s an extension of the Cares Act employee retention tax credit through July 1st. So that’s a credit. So versus a deduction, which you take after you figure out what your taxable, you know, um, in determining your taxable income. I’m sorry. And the credit after you figured out what your taxes are that would apply against your taxes. So there’s an employee retention tax credit. Um, that’s been made a little bit simpler. It’s a little too complicated for probably people’s interest on this radio program. But take a look at it as a tax credit might be really valuable to some organizations that might not otherwise qualify for PDP. Forgivable

[00:36:46.96] spk_1:
long. Okay. For employee retention. Yeah. Okay. Okay. How about we leave it there? Gene Sound. Okay,

[00:36:54.03] spk_0:
That sounds great, tony.

[00:37:58.63] spk_1:
Okay. Thank you again. Thank you for doing P p p re ducks. Two point. Oh, uh, course. Gene is managing attorney of Neo. You’ll find the firm at neo law group dot com. He’s at G Tack, and you should be subscribing to the wildly popular non profit lob log dot com. Thank you very much, Jeanne. Always a pleasure, tony. Thanks Next week. The hot sauce principle. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives Prospect to donor. Simplified for a free demo and a free month. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff Shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty. Be with me next week for non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great