Revisiting the idea of perpetuity

As most know, the US has the friendliest public policy towards private charity among developed nations. Gifts to charities and foundations are tax-deductible with only minor limits. In most cases, foundations’ earnings are tax-exempt as well. Once established, foundations are bound to distribute 5 per cent of the current value of their assets each year. But is this enough? Do we really want eternal foundations? Click here to read ...

A coffee shop for the social capital market

Markets convene in conversations, not in taxonomies or on trading floors. That was true when investors in ships going to or coming from the spice islands convened in Amsterdam coffee shops to figure out how to share risk and return in the exploding opportunity ahead of them. Those transaction-intensive, one-off deals created the Dutch Bourse. Click here to read ...

Watchdog or lapdog?

Like any other sector of society, a healthy philanthropic sector needs the scrutiny of external watchdog organizations as well as appropriate governmental regulation and oversight. But ensuring that the watchdog does not turn into a lapdog is a challenge that bedevils even countries with well-developed philanthropic sectors and confounds those where the sector is only beginning to build an infrastructure. Click here to read ...

Brazil increases scrutiny of NGOs

NGOs active in Brazil will have to re-register with the government under regulations which have drawn criticism from campaigners, according to a report published in the UK’s Financial Times. Organizations will need to detail their sources of financing, list executives, and provide a breakdown of their plans and locations of operations as well as a host of supporting documentation on pain of closure or, if foreign, of expulsion from Brazil. Click here to read ...

No resolution to question of PCNC's accreditation status

The future of the Philippines Council for NGO Certification (PCNC), and the extent to which it will continue to have power to accredit donee institutions, is still unclear. Executive Order (EO) 671, issued in October last year, referred to PCNC's accreditation function as 'undue delegation' and distributed responsibility for accreditation among a number of government departments instead (see Alliance eBulletin, January 2008). Following representations, however, the Order was withdrawn pending a review. Click here to read ...

EFC - EU moving in right direction on cross-border giving

The European Foundation Centre (EFC) has long been pressing for a European foundation statute to tackle the red tape that besets foundations trying to work across the continent's internal borders. The European Union had been slow to redress shortcomings in this area but things may finally be improving. A feasibility study is now under way and its conclusions will be known in the autumn. We hope these will recommend drafting a statute. EFC will continue to express its support for this outcome, stressing the need for an optional, public-benefit legal tool, governed by European law and complementing national laws.

Migration, disability and fostering creativity Click here to read ...

Private foundations: improving the eco-environment of China's NGOs

In 2004, the Chinese government enacted a Regulation on Foundation Administration which allows individuals, including foreigners, to establish private foundations with their own capital contributions. The People’s Daily, the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, describes Chinese private foundations as a ‘new generation of civil philanthropy’. Not only are they among the first officially sanctioned NGOs to be able to operate autonomously, but as grantmakers they are proving instrumental in improving the eco-environment of China’s NGOs in general. Click here to read ...

Interview - Nick Young

Nick Young founded China Development Brief in 1995 to report on efforts to achieve fair and sustainable development in China. Twelve years later it has been closed down by the Chinese government and Young’s visa cancelled. What does this tell us about Chinese government attitudes to the country’s fledgling NGO sector, Caroline Hartnell asked him. The picture he paints is of a government that is on the one hand wary of pluralism and oppositional attitudes and on the other keen to promote charitable giving and service delivery by NGOs. Click here to read ...

APPC - Updated reports on philanthropy and law in South Asia

Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium (APPC) has just published an updated analysis of recent developments in South Asia relating to the regulation of, and policy towards, the philanthropy and non-profit sector. Compiled by the same authors who wrote the original, 2004 version of Philanthropy and Law in South Asia (PALISA), the reports describe and analyse new developments (2004 to mid-2007) in legal frameworks in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, showing what Barnett Baron of The Asia Foundation calls ‘growing government awareness of and wary cooperation with the non-profit sector’. Click here to read ...

Update: Pakistan NGOs reject Code of Conduct

James Shaw-Hamilton’s article in the March issue of Alliance reported that the Government of Pakistan was working closely with NGOs, with the assistance of the UK Charity Commission, to develop a Code of Conduct for regulators and NGOs. Since then, the situation seems to have deteriorated, with some NGOs in vocal opposition. Click here to read ...