Lead Stories

In a long-anticipated ruling, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund has been found not liable to the donors to a donor advised fund who claimed that they were damaged significantly when Fidelity sold all 1.9 million donated shares of a thinly-traded company in the last 2.5 hours of trading of the last day of trading in December 2017.  A magistrate judge in a Federal District Court in California has dismissed all of the donors’ claims.

The Bankruptcy Code provides that all pending or potential claims against the debtor are automatically stayed and may not be pursued when the debtor formally files for bankruptcy protection.  But the law also provides that cases are not stayed against non-debtors, including the individual officers of a bankrupt organization. 

The Military Sexual Trauma Movement was formed in 2018 as a 501(c)(4) organization to help survivors of military sexual trauma and other discrimination.  Its leadership was all volunteers and it had no paid employees.

Fundraisers for charity frequently cite the Donor Bill of Rights, created by the Association of Fundraising Professionals and other professional fundraising organizations, as evidence of the charity’s good stewardship of charitable contributions.  But what happens when a disgruntled donor claims the charity failed to live up to the high ideals it espoused?

An appellate court in Pennsylvania has rejected a claim that a nonprofit formed to promote the arts should be prohibited from selling its building because it had failed to adequately consider alternatives that would avoid destruction of the building and its unique mosaic façade.  The Court reversed a trial court decision holding that the organization was obligated to show that the decision, “which would all but assure the destruction of the façade,” was in the best interest of the organization and the public to which it is dedicated to serve.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has affirmed a District Court order invalidating a Federal Election Commission Rule on disclosure of donors for independent political expenditures.  The Court has determined that the statute requires broader disclosure than the FEC had previously required.  If this decision stands, it could require public disclosure of all donors of more than $200 to an organization that makes independent expenditures of more than $250 in a calendar year.