tim-mooney.com

We’ll be having some downtime here at the site as we shift servers on March 20th (next Thursday as I type this). You might experience some delays in getting in touch with us during that process, but everything should be operational in short order. Thanks!

NBC is reporting that the Senate Finance committee is renewing its demands for certain churches to provide detailed financial information. The letters sent today are a follow-up to letters sent last year to a virtual who’s who of large televangelist ministries, including Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland.

These ministries are 501(c)(3) organizations that are required to turn over certain financial information through their Form 990s upon public request. The Senate investigation is turning up the heat on the financial practices of some of these organizations.

If you’re in Atlanta, this looks like a great opportunity to learn about running an ethical organization:

Seminar Announcement

What: The Nonprofit Studies Program of the Andrew Young School of Policy at Georgia State University presents its Brown Bag Seminar Series in Nonprofit Research.

Who: John Knapp of The Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business will address the topic: “Fostering Ethical Cultures in Non-Profit Organizations”

When: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 12:30 PM

Where: Seminar Room #749 at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Building at 14 Marietta Street, NW

The purpose of these seminars is to discuss research-in-progress by faculty associated with the nonprofit program.

We invite students, faculty and interested members of the community to join us!

Drinks and cookies will be served.

All that and cookies too… I wish I could swing the trip down for this one! Hat tip to the good folks at the Nonprofit Law Profs blog for the original pointer.

The Wall Street Journal is the latest to report on the various issues related to churches and politicking… I was happy to see that it noted that there have only been two revocations since 1954. One of them (the more recent… 1992) was a church in Binghamton that took out full page ads telling readers to vote for Bob Dole. Good old Branch Ministries… I don’t know if they had any inkling how badly they violated tax law, but they didn’t jsut cross the line… they jumped over it!

Nonprofit Law Podcast #34 covers the murky world of IRS audit procedures (now less murky!).

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Sen. Obama’s speech at last summer’s United Church of Christ conference has managed to pull an IRS investigation according to the AP. Here’s some interesting analysis from two sources:

John Wilson’s IRS Probe Of Obama’s Church Underscores Anxieties For Nonprofits underscores the difficulty charities and other nonprofits are facing with these subjective rules… something I’ve blogged about before.

Over at the Nonprofit Law Prof blog, there’s a a great pointer to Jack Siegel’s take on the situation. Quoting their quote of him:

We do think Congress must step in and write a prohibition on political campaign activity that addresses the reality of how churches and other Section 501(c)(3) organizations interact with political candidates. In addressing this problem, we would like to see Congress take an approach akin to that taken by the intermediate sanctions in Section 4958. That is, rather than penalizing the innocent entity or the entity that can’t control a speaker once the speech has begun, the sanctions should focus on the speaker’s conduct, penalizing the speaker. Many will argue that this raises First Amendment issues. We recognize that possibility, but are not convinced. Obviously, the speaker has a right to speak, but the speech in question is by invitation. Consequently, this is not silencing the speaker in terms of access to the public square.

A safe harbor for the charity in case the speaker slips into campaign mode would probably face a lot less resistance compared to the flip side: penalizing the speaker. I’d be very surprised if that idea ever got off the ground.

I got a question in my email box from a prospective law student… unfortunately the student’s email bounced back on me so I couldn’t respond! So, if you fit that bill… email me at tim at tim dash mooney dot com and I’ll resend it to you directly.

A lot of people ask me about how to go about training to become a lawyer serving nonprofits… I think the bottom line is that law schools are – for the most part – not the place where you’ll learn that craft. There are absolutely some great programs out there (Columbia and Boston College come to mind immediately) but I’ve always maintained that no matter what type of law you’d like to practice, you want to find a good clinical program rather than seek out the best academic program. I’m sure others may disagree, but I can honestly say I learned far more about being a lawyer in my litigation clinic than in any of my classes.

One major piece of advice I give to anyone thinking about nonprofit work in law school… take administrative law. You’ll be shocked how often it’s relevant to the work you do!

A North Carolina state representative is being accused of using her charity’s resources to aid in her election efforts. Rep. Mary McAllister helped found Operation Sickle Cell in 1972 and has found herself the target of a state auditor’s investigation. More on this from the Fayetteville Observer.

Interesting to see that it is a state investigation… it’s conceivable that the IRS could look into this as well.

Happy Valentine’s Day FEC! SpeechNow.org is filing a lawsuit against the FEC today, asking a federal court to allow it to advocate for or against federal candidates without having to comply with contribution limits. The way things have been going in these cases, the SpeechNow.org argument has a really strong chance of succeeding… it takes no corporate money and it does not coordinate with federal candidates nor make contributions to federal candidates. It’s (kind of… sort of) akin to the successful arguments made decades ago in MCFL. If that rings a bell, that case opened things up for certain types of ideological 501(c)(4) organizations to make independent expenditures.

In any event, pay attention to this one if you want your nonprofit to be able to engage in more election-related advocacy. It’s got a lot of election lawyers taking notice.

Memo to all 501(c)(3)s (especially churches)… yes, the head of your organization can endorse a candidate. Just be sure to not use the organization letterhead when you do it… it matters (apparently) to the IRS.

As I write this, I’m thinking about the paradox in IRS rules at times… in what I like to call the “hang a lantern on your problem” rule, the IRS has no problem when an endorsing person is listed with their organizational affiliation along with an asterisk that leads the reader to a disclaimer stating “organizational affiliation listed for identification purposes only.” (IRS FS-2006-17) Contrast that with this instance where clear organizational identification (the letterhead) seems to be leading this church into an investigation even though the pastor is suggesting that the letter underscored a personal endorsement. I think you can distinguish the two endorsement scenarios, but it underscores a continuing problem for all 501(c)(3)s out there: the facts and circumstances analysis is so subjective that it’s sometimes difficult to know where the line is between legal and illegal activity.