An article I wrote entitled “CRA Guidance on Fundraising: AN OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE FUNDRAISING PRACTICES IN THE SECTOR” was published in PERSPECTIVES ON CANADIAN PHILANTHROPY by the Offord Group. The publication can be downloaded from Mark Blumberg is a…
In Registered Charities Newsletter No. 24 Summer 2005 the CRA discusses the status of certain First Nations groups as qualified donees. The qualified donee status is important as organizations that are qualified donees can issue “official donation receipts”. If you…
I am often asked “When should a Canadian charity not issue a “official donation receipt” (tax receipt)?” First of all Canadian charities do not have to issue tax receipts – however, if they are going to issue official donation receipts,…
I recently attended the Interaction Forum held in Washington, D.C. on July 6-9, 2009. The Interaction Forum is the largest gathering of US ngos involved with development. I met some very interesting people and learned quite a lot. Here are…
Valuation is complicated but don’t rely on the donor to tell you the value or use some optimistic number. If a charity provides an official donation receipt for a donation of pharmaceuticals to a donor that charity is obliged to…
Google has lots of free tools. Here is one tool that costs money but that google is giving to some Canadian charities for free and it is “Google Adwords” through their google grants program. Here is the Google blurb:…
You can find the Nantel v. The Queen (TCC) decision in French at According to the headnote it involved the valuation of a donation to a charity of a number of pieces of art that were bought by the…
An article entitled Jewish Ethical Perspective to American Taxation by Kenneth H. Ryesky provides a Jewish law perspective on the US tax system. Many of the points made here would be equally applicable to the Canadian tax and registered charity…
CRA’s Guidance “Fundraising by Registered Charities” is in two separate documents namely the main guidance at and (entitled Additional information on Guidance CPS-028, Fundraising by Registered Charities). These documents are hyperlinked together and you can go back and…
Can a Canadian non-profit under 149(1)(l) earn a profit. Does it matter if the profit is intentional and/or will be used to further the organization’s purposes? LANGIND E DOCNUM 2009-0337311E5 AUTHOR Zannese, Lisa DESCKEY 25 RATEKEY 2 REFDATE 091105 SUBJECT…
In Maréchaux, F.M.E. v. The Queen the case revolved around whether F. Max E. Maréchaux, was entitled to a charitable donation tax credit. Maréchaux is a lawyer at the law firm Miller Thomson LLP. http://www.millerthomson.com/index.cfm?cm=Employee&ce=details&primaryKey=16425 CRA had disallowed the…
According to Statistics Canada total charitable donations in 2007 were $8,648,660,000 ($8.6Billion) and in 2008 $8,189,280,000 ($8.1B). I am not great at math but that seems to indicate a drop of about $450 million dollars. That is only part of…
Carol Goar in her article “All dressed up and nowhere to volunteer” asks some interesting questions about why we are not adequately using volunteers. Hopefully the article will intensify the discussion on the point. Goar: All dressed up and nowhere…
CRA is asking those who visit their Charities and Giving Web pages which are geared towards donors and charities. You can take their survey at:
Russel is an art donation case. However, it is more than that. It might be the beginning of the end of the abusive charity gifting tax shelters in Canada. This is now the fourth in a line of cases that…
Social Enterprise for Canadian Charities: Legal Compliance from A-Z (9:00 AM – 5:00 PM) Saturday November 21, 2009 Charities are under increasing pressure to increase and diversify revenue. At the same time social enterprise offers a method to tackle complex…
The first chapter of the online toolkit covers charities and terrorism. The next chapters will deal with Safeguarding charity funds; Safeguarding charities – people, property, reputation; and a case study archive (good practice examples from the sector for all chapters)…
The Ontario Public Guardian and Trustee has produced a charity bulletin entitled Charitable Fundraising: Tips for Directors and Trustees. In that bulletin they discuss fundraising requirements for charities that operate in Ontario. Here is the text of the bulletin: Information…
Another case involving a charity losing its charitable status. Another example of a very weak case being brought that just helps perpetuate bad case law involving charities. Date: 20091102 Docket: A-530-07 Citation: 2009 FCA 318 Coram: NOËL J.A. NADON J.A.…
Here is an interesting article on the US foundation sector that appeared recently in the Wall Street Journal entitled “What’s Wrong With Charitable Giving—and How to Fix It”
Here is the 2009 Fall Report of the Auditor General of Canada and Chapter 8—Strengthening Aid Effectiveness—Canadian International Development Agency .
I recently prepared a Charity Legal Compliance Risk Assessment Tool for the Charity Law Information Program. It is available at the CLIP website. Hope you find it useful. Mark Blumberg is a lawyer at Blumberg Segal LLP in Toronto,…
The Ontario government has put forward a “Good Governance” bill – “The majority of the nearly 600 items included in the Good Government Act, 2009 were contributed to by 22 ministries and propose technical changes that would simplify government processes,…
Interesting article entitled Charities Face Greater Threat From Ponzi Schemes Than Lost Investments The long and the short is that a charity that received a donation from a person who had obtained those funds either illicitly or the return on…