Hard Don’t, Soft Don’t: Activity-Based Issues and Pressure Points for Nonprofit Organizations

Session 1: Hard Don't, Soft Don't: Activity-Based Issues and Pressure Points - A practical guide to navigating common operational issues. Consider varied activities and operations – grants and direct programmatic activities, strategic transactions, compensation arrangements and more – through both a legal and reputational lens. Gain insight on policies and procedures that promote organizational compliance, resilience and nimbleness. 

Session 2: Public Charity Considerations - Public charities regularly navigate a variety of legal and reputational issues when making operational and strategic decisions. Consider operational and strategic issues related to a charity’s disqualified persons, its sources of support, and its relationships with other entities and its constituencies, through a compliance lens.

Session 3: Private Foundation Considerations - Private Foundations face unique challenges with compliance issues. Learn how to navigate the hard don'ts and soft don'ts for maximum flexibility, with a focus on taxable expenditures, private benefit, self-dealing and reputational risks.

Session 4: Compensation Pitfalls and Traps - Examine both common and complex issues in nonprofit compensation, including establishing reasonable compensation, compliance with new Section 4960, and COVID-related impacts.

Session 5: Forms 990 and 990-PF: Practical Considerations - While the 990’s reporting relating to tax edicts (“hard don’ts”) occupy less than 10% of the Form, the bulk of the 990 (and parts of the 990-PF) explores the filer’s management practices and a wide array of its activities. The latter arenas are readily mined by the press, IRS and state regulators, and community stakeholders, and that reality informs the often-ignored “soft don’ts” that this session will address. 

Includes: Video Audio Paper Slides