Private Foundation Summit 2019

This session will provide an update on tax law changes, IRS guidance, rulings and priority guidance plans from one of the foremost legal advisors to the tax exempt sector.

• Understand status of current tax provisions
• Identify how IRS guidance on the TCJA of 2017 may impact private foundations

Today’s philanthropists are using private foundations as only one tool in the toolkit to achieve greater impact. From individuals to corporations there are diverse goals, some of which cannot be achieved solely using a private foundation. Choosing the right vehicle is important to achieving goals. Some of the tools include LLCs, public charities, social welfare organizations, for-profit entities, other hybrid pass-through entities, and donor-advised funds (DAFs). Effective use of these "tools" requires knowledge of the rules governing them as well as their relative strengths and weaknesses. During this session, we will discuss examples of private foundations being effectively combined with other entities to achieve enhanced philanthropic results.

• Understand how private foundations interact with other types of organizations.
• Understand how organizations can be disqualified persons to a disqualified person and why it would be important.

A panel of experts discuss the new standards and how their respective organizations have dealt with implementation issues.

• Participants will learn various perspectives on implementation of the most sweeping NFP standards changes in 20 years in including a deep dive on NFP reporting (ASU 2016-14) and contributions received and made (ASU 2018-08).
• Particpants will learn about any potential impacts of topic 958 regarding exchange versus contributions.

Cybersecurity is an ever-changing, rapidly-evolving field. Not only are the technical and operational challenges more complex than ever before, but too often we focus on the latest hack and lose sight of how to prepare our environments in concrete ways for the threats to come. The legal, technical and institutional challenges posed by the issue of cybersecurity are global and far-reaching, and can only be addressed through a coherent strategy taking into account the role of different stakeholders and existing initiatives, within a framework of international cooperation. Emerging Data Privacy regulations around the world are also forcing nonprofits to think beyond traditional cybersecurity and consider how to protect the data of the general public, employees, and even vendors and suppliers. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are just two of a trend towards enhanced consumer data protection - which carries heavy fines for non-compliance. This course is intended for nonprofit decision makers to cover the fundamentals of a mature cross-enterprise cybersecurity program, including how to establish a culture of compliance when it comes to protecting personal information.

• By the end of the course, attendees will be able to: Describe current cybersecurity and privacy threats facing nonprofit organizations.
• Articulate the unique roles and responsibilities they have in defining a security-forward posture for their organization.

In 2016, five foundations—Ford, Hewlett, MacArthur, Open Society, and Packard—came together with The Bridgespan Group to explore the underlying challenge of insufficient cost recovery: project-restricted grants that do not cover the actual costs of those organizations we are trying to support. Building on previous research, the funder collaborative engaged nonprofit organizations, program officers, sector intermediaries, and financial experts (including BDO, FMA, & Humentum) in a pilot project to better understand the dynamics of the cost recovery problem and potential solutions. Based on our findings, and with a view toward driving change among funders and finance professionals more broadly, the session will outline specific tactics that can be used to support grantees in building stronger, more effective organizations.

• Understand the drivers of the insufficient cost recovery problem and the relationship to financial instability among grantees.
• Navigate a “menu of grantmaking approaches,” spanning flexible enterprise-level support as well as project-restricted funding options.
• Learn about the process of indirect cost rate verification with individual grantees (as piloted by the funder collaborative and pilot “verification partners”: BDO, FMA, & Humentum), including where opportunities exist to develop shared guidelines for indirect cost rate calculation.
• Identify what steps funders can take to recognize and address the cost recovery problem in their own portfolios.

This session will introduce a broad range of issues and present some tips for addressing challenges a foundation may face when venturing into the world of international philanthropy and investing.

• Participants will be able to identify compliance challenges facing organizations when making grants and PRIs to organizations overseas and the impact of foreign currency fluctuations, and ways to mitigate the impact.
• Participants will understand the broad range of regulatory filings relating to foreign investments, the types of investments that present the greatest compliance challenges, and red flags to identify in fund documents and agreements.

This session provides practical and detailed discussion of the most complex and interesting filing issues our tax experts have worked through in the past year. This session will be interactive. Please bring your difficult filing issues you encountered which you may not have resolved in May for the group to discuss.

• Learn about complex filing issues on the Form 990-PF and 990-T.
• Practical tips for contemporaneously documenting filing positions on Form 990-PF and 990-T.

Private foundations are prohibited from engaging in legislative and political activity as defined in IRC 4945. That does not mean there is no legislative or political activity in which a private foundation can legally engage. Building on last year's challenge, Ruth Madrigal will discuss how private foundations can be less polite and more effective in requesting legislative change which fulfills their exempt purposes and does not violate 4945 prohibitions.

• Understand what is prohibited activity.
• Identify what activities are allowable, and what are effective activities for private foundations to engage in to effect change.

Case studies with transactions that result in self-dealing will illustrate how to identify and correct such acts. The session with focus on ideas for avoiding the unforgivable penalties, using policies and procedures, and practical solutions will be shared.

• Gain an understanding of who is a disqualified person and what constitutes an act of self-dealing.
• Gain understanding of the very different – some severe and some lenient – amounts involved in correction of self-dealing acts.
• Identify how to correct acts of self-dealing should they occur.

In this session we'll discuss how building a diverse organization improves performance, enhances innovation, and boosts creativity. We'll explore the definitions around diversity, equity and inclusion and strategies around what organizations are doing in this space from hiring to vendor selection and beyond. We'll share practical resources and advice to help you no matter where you are along the DE&I journey.

• Understand the landscape in the DE&I space, definitions and why DE&I, in all aspects of our work, are important to mission of our clients.
• Identify how to operationalize DE&I and leave with tools they can start using right away.