EO Radio Show

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . This is the first in a series of episodes covering the federal and state laws that apply to business transactions between a nonprofit and its insiders such as directors, executives, substantial contributors, and entities controlled by them.  In this episode, I provide a general overview of the federal laws. I talk about the rules that cove...

Welcome to  EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . In this episode, I expand on an important concept that often comes up for private foundations when addressing the rules that require use of a minimum amount each year for charitable purposes. This is known in the industry as the minimum distribution requirement. In the last episode, I talked about the general rules for computing a foundat...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource. Private foundations are required to spend a minimum amount each year for charitable purposes, which is known in the industry as the minimum distribution requirement. Like all other private foundation rules, there are a lot of exceptions and special rules. I'm not going to cover all the rules exhaustively in this episode, but listen in for a...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . Have you ever heard the phrase, "you'll have to exercise expenditure responsibility as a condition for giving or receiving a grant," and then decided to just go do something else? It's too hard, too complicated, gets IRS scrutiny, just too scary. Expenditure responsibility, or "ER" as the foundation world refers to it, won't send you to th...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . Every January brings a slew of new laws that take effect at the federal and state level, and it seems that there are always new laws that affect the employer-employee relationship. Our legal topic for today covers the new pay transparency law that applies to California employers. Even if you are not in California, these rules may be of int...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . I'm happy to have my colleague Nate Garhart back for a discussion on privacy laws and how they affect website content development, as well as online activities by nonprofits. We'll start our conversation with some basic background on when a nonprofit needs a privacy policy on its website and how to think about what should be posted on the...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource .  Happy New Year, everyone!  Today I talk with Farella's Nate Garhart about websites and terms of use and the legal concepts relevant to nonprofits that have interactive websites. We'll cover best practices as well as common pitfalls to avoid. Resources: EO Radio Show #20: Copyright Issues for Nonprofits US Copyright Office Nate Garhart bio...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource .  As the year comes to a close, I thought it would be a good time to take a few moments to chat about important annual responsibilities. And to check in on other housekeeping that busy nonprofits sometimes overlook and that could be a good start for nonprofit leaders to put on their list of things to do in 2023. Resources: IRS Links: About...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . Episode 24 is the second of two parts that discuss supporting organizations as a special type of public charity. All supporting organizations must pass an organizational test, an operational test, a control test, and a relationship test. Supporting organizations are further classified as Type I, Type II, or Type III supporting organization...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . This episode is the first of two parts that discuss the definition of supporting organizations as a special type of public charity. All supporting organizations must pass four tests: an organizational test, an operational test, a control test, and a relationship test. Supporting organizations are further classified as Type I, Type II, or T...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . In this episode, my law partner Hons Yung and I finish our conversation about the first season of the Apple TV+ series Loot starring Maya Rudolph. We look at some technical legal topics and then we have some fun imagining being the lawyer for Molly Wells. Resources: Note to listeners from Cynthia:  I did the math after the episode—$87 mill...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . In this episode, my law partner Hons Yung and I bring you what we hope to be the first in an occasional series of reviews of popular media, feature films, episodic series, and other videos that feature charitable foundations, public charities, or charitable giving in fictional storytelling. In this first installment, we look at the first s...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . This episode covers the basics of copyright law that most nonprofits need to know about. We answer the questions: Who owns what? How does the owner protect their rights? Does the owner even want to? When can you use someone else's work? My guest today is my colleague and friend Nate Garhart, an expert in intellectual property law at Farell...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . Many business lawyers are called on to advise public charities such as their kids' schools and sports leagues, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters, museums and cultural institutions, community foundations, and the occasional private foundation set up by a good client. While much of the legal work for established nonprofits is the same as...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . In this Nonprofit Basics episode, Cynthia Rowland explains the meaning of operating foundation status for a private foundation under the federal tax rules. She also covers the test for obtaining and retaining that classification. Resources: IRS materials on operating foundation status IRS form 4720 (Return of Certain Excise Taxes) Instruct...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . In this episode of EO Radio Show, I will cover some federal Internal Revenue Code rules that charitable organizations and their donors need to know in order to make sure that the donors benefit from the charitable contribution deduction for their contributions. After a brief overview of the landscape of contribution deduction rules, my gue...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . In this episode, we address the fiduciary duty of a nonprofit board when setting its investment policies and how to think about impact investing in the context of a diversified investment portfolio. I'm delighted that we can take this opportunity to bring you a conversation with Craig Ayers, Senior Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manag...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . In this episode, I'm delighted to bring you Part 2 of a conversation I had with Melissa Dalske, Chief Experience Officer at Nonprofits Insurance Alliance. In Part 1, we talked about insurance basics and the insurance application process. Along with ideas about how to manage the insurance costs as an organization starts out. In Part 2, we t...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . Risk management for a nonprofit starts with good governance, effective management and appropriate policies for employment practices, conflicts of interest and financial management among others. In today's conversation, I'd like to focus on the backstop to good risk management, that is appropriate insurance coverage, because misnakes happen...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . This Nonprofit Basics episode covers record retention policies, document destruction schedules, and why they matter. You may have noticed that the IRS Form 990, that's the information return for nonprofit organizations, specifically asks the filing organization if it has a document retention policy. It is buried at line 14 of Section B to...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . For this episode, I'm delighted to bring you an interview with Tim Parisi, Incident Response Director at CrowdStrike. Tim and I discuss the significant cybersecurity threats to nonprofits large and small, and provide some tools and best practices so that these nightmare scenarios don't keep nonprofit leaders awake at night. Resources: Crow...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . This episode covers legal aspects of amending the bylaws for a nonprofit corporation to change its governance, to update the bylaws for changes in the laws, or to conform the bylaw provisions to how the board is actually governing the organization. I'll address the approvals that may be required to amend the governance provisions, how the...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . This episode provides a checklist of considerations when organizing a new charity to provide relief in the aftermath of a disaster, such as an earthquake, hurricane, wildfire, pandemic, terrorist attack, or war. Many disasters require long-term recovery efforts, long-term fundraising, and a long-term commitment to the victims. This episode...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . This Nonprofit Basics episode addresses some common charitable questions that come up in the immediate aftermath of disasters: earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, pandemics, terrorist attacks, and wars. Generous Americans look for immediate ways to create new organizations or charitable programs to support those affected by fundraising, di...

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . This Nonprofit Basics episode is the third of a three-part series on election year activities for public charities and private foundations. Part 3 addresses private foundation approaches to policy advocacy that are allowed by the Internal Revenue Code. Part 1 addressed the prohibition on intervention in candidate campaigns for elected offi...