Nonprofitability: July 2017
Newsbits
High net worth donors: Generous with their money and time
Donors from households with net assets of $1 million or more — or those that bring home at least $200,000 annually — on average made donations totaling $25,509 in 2015 compared to an average of $2,124 from the general population, according to the 2016 U.S. Trust ® Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy . And, on average, these high net worth households gave to eight different nonprofits. Also, wealthy donors who volunteered gave 56% more, on average, than those who didn’t volunteer. And 83% of wealthy donors plan to give as much or more in the next three years.
IRS releases FY 2016 compliance results
In its Tax Exempt and Government Entities FY 2017 Work Plan , the IRS reported on the nearly 5,000 examinations of exempt organizations it conducted in the 2016 fiscal year. The exams focused on five issues: exemption (including nonexempt purpose activity and private inurement), protection of assets (including self-dealing and excess benefit transactions), the tax gap related to areas where a nonprofit is subject to a tax (including employment taxes and unrelated business income taxes), international transactions (including oversight of funds spent outside the United States) and emerging issues (including nonexempt charitable trusts). In FY 2016, the IRS revoked the status of 43 organizations — almost two-thirds of these were revoked for not operating for an exempt purpose.
Board service boosts careers
Do you need an enticement for attracting high-quality board members? As a recent Wall Street Journal article points out: “Executives are doing good for others — and good for their careers — by joining boards of nonprofit organizations.” The article says that more executives are looking to serve on nonprofit boards because “they operate in an increasingly competitive and networked world … and the experience builds their networking further.” Not-for-profit board experience also can help executives strengthen their leadership skills and give them opportunities to demonstrate abilities they aren’t able to show at work, such as strategic planning or fundraising.
Do most nonprofits benefit from mergers?
In a recent study, 88% of nonprofits involved in a merger felt that their organization was better off postmerger in terms of achieving organizational goals and increasing impact. So discovered a team of Northwestern University researchers who studied 25 nonprofit mergers in the Chicago area (and four cases that ultimately didn’t result in mergers). Interviews with participants found that the most successful mergers were mission-driven and motivated by the desire to provide higher-quality services or to expand into new areas.
© 2017
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