Lead Stories

A charitable estate planning firm did not breach a fiduciary duty to a married couple by failing to disclose the full basis of their fee arrangement with charitable beneficiaries of the plan, a California Court of Appeal has affirmed.  Two daughters who sought to overturn the estate plan that reduced bequests to them have been rebuffed in a family fight over the estate.

The Attorney General of New York has permanently barred the former CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies in the Buffalo area from serving in a fiduciary capacity for any charity active in New York state after finding that the CEO misused approximately $3.1 million in donor advised and other funds held by the organization.

Total assets held by donor advised funds across the country rose to $234.06 billion in 2021, an increase of 39.5% over the prior year, and continuing a steady annual increase in values from a total of $112.8 billion in 2017, according to the latest annual report from the National Philanthropic Trust issued in late November. 

The Women’s Nonprofit Leadership Initiative and the Nonprofit Center of La Salle University have published an updated report focused on the boardrooms of the Philadelphia area’s largest nonprofit medical and educational institutions (“meds” and “eds”).  The report reveals that many have made significant progress in the last three years in increasing the gender and racial diversity of their governing bodies.

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania, an intermediate appellate court, has affirmed a trial court decision and denied a request of the Virginia Military Institute to terminate a $2 million trust for its benefit and transfer the assets to its affiliated foundation outright.  In what it called a case of first impression, the Court upheld the position of the trustee bank and the state attorney general that the donor had intended to keep the assets separate from the institution and a difference in cost was not sufficient to deviate from that intent.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court decision dismissing a suit by the creator of a donor advised fund who sought reputational and other damages on the ground that the sponsor of the DAF paid excessive fees for managing the investments and deprived him of funds to distribute to other charities.  (See Nonprofit Issues^® Vol. XXXI No.