There are approximately 6,300 private foundations in Canada. Private foundations have been growing at a higher rate than any other type of Canadian registered charity. They have assets of around $100 Billion. Although there are some differences between a private…
We just launched a new course on fundraising regulation in Canada. Here is a description of the course: Many Canadian charities fundraise. In total fundraising brings in over $20 billion for Canadian charities every year. Through the dedicated work of…
CRA recently provided a redacted letter on “Whether an individual may claim a non-refundable tax credit on their final return for a gift by will, to a U.S. organization.” The letter has a good summary of how donations by Canadian…
In the BC case, Henderson v. Myler the BC Supreme Court dealt with a bequest. The case deals with a dispute as to how an estate should be divided as there was a will, but also a note which some…
In a recent Manitoba case Dickson v. The Humane Society of Canada for the Protection of Animals and the Environment et al. in deal with a person who left money to various charities. One of those charities lost their status…
In the case of Piett v Global Learning Group Inc., 2021 SKQB 232 the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench decided not to certify a class action on GLGI as there is already one in Ontario. Here is good coverage of the case…
There is often confusion in the charity sector about donations of marketable securities vs. donations of private company shares in Canada. There is a huge difference in complexity between the two different transactions, although many charity gift acceptance policies that…
Here is Blumbergs’ Written Submission to the Department of Finance about the disbursement quota. As we note in the submission, we are firmly in favour of an increase in the disbursement quota. We so suggest possible changes in our submission…
In this article “Should the disbursement quota for registered charities in Canada change or be left alone?”, Mark Blumberg and Jessie Lang discuss the disbursement quota (DQ) and the Department of Finance’s consultation on whether the Income Tax Act should be…
CRA recently sent out an email entitled “Warning: Watch out for tax shelter gifting schemes“. I am not sure if this is just regular communication or there is an upswing in these. You would think that they would be warning…
2020 was a turbulent year. The CRA has updated their document P113 – Gifts and Income Tax for 2020. The P113 is a helpful guide to the tax consequences of donations to registered charities and qualified donees. The big change…
Our firm has been using online tools for over 10 years – primarily webinars. In 2018, we moved to providing paid online courses dealing with charity and non-profit legal compliance and risk management to the non-profit and charity sector as…
We were pleasantly surprised to see that The Charity Report “your independent source of news in the charity sector” recently published an article Blumberg Snapshot: Taking measurement of the charity sector, 2010 to 2018. It profiles the many years that our…
Here is our Blumbergs Canadian Charity Sector Snapshot 2018. We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2018 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project. The database covers about 84,323 of the 85,800 registered charities in…
We have recently added 2 new full-day courses namely Fundamentals of Running a Canadian Charitable Organization/Operating Charity and Fundamentals of Running a Private or Public Foundation in Canada. These are in-depth courses which will help those who run operating charities…
Today we are launching a new course of restricted gifts for Canadian charities: “Restricted Gifts – Managing the Opportunities and Dangers of Restricted Charitable Gifts“. For every course, I need to have a picture and for this one, I picked…
I wrote to the BC Financial Services Authority on May 4, 2020, asking for some clarifications relating to their Information Bulletin entitled “Charitable Donation of Life Insurance Policies in British Columbia” which we covered here. On May 8, 2020, they…
Every year less than 1% of Canadian registered charities identify in their T3010 receiving a life insurance policy for which they issued an official donation receipt. (See Schedule 5 to the Blumbergs Canadian Charity Sector Snapshot 2017). That being said…
Many groups are doing special purpose fundraising for COVID-19 in which they are specifically soliciting or accepting for COVID-19 related programs. Charities have to be careful of a number of issues when fundraising for a specific purpose. After having worked…
We have written about 2 recent notices from the Ontario Public Guardian and Trustee (“PGT”) relating to restricted funds and the pandemic. These are Ontario PGT has issued a “Statement on Accessing Restricted Purpose Trust Funds Prior to Obtaining a Court…
The Ontario Public Guardian and Trustees has circulated today to some charity lawyers some additional information on dealing with restricted gifts during the COVID-19 emergency. You can see the full text below. Here is our original discussion of a notice…
Many people at home right now have some time on their hands and some are thinking about updating their wills. Some don’t have wills at all and for others what they have is outdated. While we used to do wills…
There is a backlash brewing against charities that are putting up desperate requests for funding but when people look at their annual report, financial statements, website or T3010 they see that the charity has a lot of money or other…
Here is our article “Some initial issues for a new Canadian grantmaking foundation“. Hopefully, it will provide some ideas as to issues that new (and perhaps existing) foundations should be considering. Also, here is our more comprehensive Canadian Charity Legal…