News Briefs for July 17, 2014

CORPORATIONS AND FOUNDATIONS PLEDGE $1.5-BILLION IN IMPACT INVESTMENTS

More than 20 organizations have committed $1.5-billion in investments meant to achieve social good as well as financial gain. The pledges, made in a roundtable hosted by the White House, include a promise by Prudential Financial to create a $1-billion impact-investing portfolio by 2020 and plans by the McKnight Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund to dedicate 10 percent of their endowments to impact investments.

KEY PROVISION IN NEW YORK STATE NONPROFIT RULE IS POSTPONED FROM TAKING EFFECT

New York State has postponed a legal provision that would bar employees of nonprofits from serving on the governing boards of their organizations. The measure is set to go into effect on January 1, 2016, but legislators said they needed more time to study the impact. The restriction was in a law that also requires stronger financial oversight, policies on conflicts of interest, and protections for whistle-blowers.

ANNUAL FUNDS REAP BENEFITS FOR ORGANIZATIONS, STUDY FINDS

Some 77 percent of organizations with an annual fund meet total fundraising goals, compared with 55 percent of organizations without one, according to a report that focuses on the impact of official annual campaigns in overall fundraising. Published by the Nonprofit Research Collaborative, the report is based on a survey of 945 nonprofits in the United States and Canada.

RED CROSS SAYS ITS FUNDRAISING FOR HURRICANE SANDY IS A ‘TRADE SECRET’

The Red Cross is fighting a public-records request, filed by the news organization ProPublica, to disclose how it raised and spent about $300-million after Hurricane Sandy, which caused extensive damage in New Jersey, New York, and other areas in October 2012. In an exchange of court filings involving the financial documents, the Red Cross described its activities in response to Sandy as a “trade secret.”

PHILANTHROPY WATCHDOG QUESTIONS MINN. FOUNDATION’S TRUSTEE COMPENSATION

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy has asked the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office to investigate a St. Paul foundation for ballooning trustee compensation. The Otto Bremer Foundation paid the amounts of $456,468, $453,151, and $284,417 to three trustees in 2012, nearly a tenfold increase over the last decade. The three trustees ousted the foundation’s executive director this year and said they would become joint CEOs.

HILLARY CLINTON SAYS SPEAKING FEES GO TO FAMILY’S FOUNDATION

America Rising, a conservative political organization, called on the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation to release its Form 990, audits, and other financial information for 2013. Hillary Clinton said in an interview with ABC News that she donates the six-figure fees she earns for speaking at universities to the foundation.

FEDERAL JUDGE REJECTS MOVE BY IRS TO DISMISS OPEN-RECORDS CASE

A federal judge denied a motion by the Internal Revenue Service to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at getting the tax agency to change the way it releases nonprofit tax forms. The case was brought by Public. Resource. Org, an advocacy group that wants the IRS to make Form 990 returns available in a format that can be read by computers so the information is more easily searchable. The IRS argued that it could not do so because of Internal Revenue Code provisions designed to protect confidentiality. But the judge said the Freedom of Information Act supersedes those rules.