Home Depot venture could be a sign of the futureShoppers strolling the vast aisles of Home Depot stores will find among the offerings several products bearing the ALSO SEE:Marketing Ventures With Companies: How Much Charities Earn National Wildlife Federation’s logo, including half-gallon jugs of…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
‘Harvard Business Review’: Cause Marketing
In the post-boom economy, some businesses have combined their marketing and charitable-giving strategies, notes an article in the Harvard Business Review (July). The companies are increasingly seeking to support charities in ways that will enhance their reputations, help them sell more products or…
By Elizabeth Schwinn and Brad Wolverton
‘Bloomberg Wealth Manager’: Donor Funds
A declining stock market caused assets to fall nearly 6 percent to $3.4-billion last year at 25 of the nation’s largest commercial donor-advised funds, according to an article in Bloomberg Wealth Manager (June). The declining market also led two companies -- Thornburg Investment Management and…
By Elizabeth Schwinn and Brad Wolverton
Write-Offs: A New Study on Planned Gifts, Charges for Nonprofit Tax Returns
Researchers at Boston College have designed and analyzed a survey on the use of planned-giving tools, such as charitable gift annuities and charitable trusts, that can offer significant tax breaks to donors. The survey asked whether respondents or their spouses had used any of 10 planned-giving…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Charities Report $4-Billion in Business Income
Charities in 1999 reported $4-billion in business income not related to their charitable missions, according to a new study by the Internal Revenue Service. That’s a drop of $125-million from the amount of unrelated-business income charities reported in 1998. The money accounted for a little over…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Man Falsely Claimed Tuition as Donation
A man who used his family foundation to funnel payments for his children’s private-school tuition has been sentenced to five months in prison for tax evasion by the U.S. District Court for Northern California. In addition to the five months in prison, Tim Mosley of San Rafael, Calif., has been…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Court Upholds Church Tax Exemption
A federal appeals court has declined to rule on whether a Louisiana sales-tax exemption for churches and other religious groups is constitutional, saying the matter belongs in state court. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said that because the case involved…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
AmeriCorps Changes Leaders and Appeals for More Money
Washington Changes in leadership at the Corporation for National and Community Service -- the organization that oversees AmeriCorps -- and efforts by Congress to free up additional money for the agency have helped ease the anxiety many charity leaders felt earlier this summer when a sharp decline…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Panel Recommends Review of Tax Shelters
In response to concern that tax-exempt organizations are being used as illegal tax shelters, an Internal Revenue Service advisory committee has recommended the creation of two new offices to tackle the problem. The committee cited two examples of abuses of charitable-giving laws: car donations by…
By Debra E. Blum and Elizabeth Schwinn
Estate-Tax Repeal Would Hurt Giving, Report Says
If the estate tax were repealed, Americans would give about $10-billion less each year to charity than they now do, according to a new report. Hardest hit, says the report: private foundations, which typically receive the greatest share of money from charitable bequests. The report, prepared by OMB…
By Debra E. Blum and Elizabeth Schwinn