Category: education

Dear Nonprofiteer, Can we make Booster Club parents "Play or Pay"?

Dear Nonprofiteer, Can we make Booster Club parents "Play or Pay"?
Dear Nonprofiteer: My daughter’s high school band has a contract with a local music venue under which the band operates two refreshment stands at the venue and in return receives a percentage of food and beverage sales. This produces a profit of more than $50,000 per year, so it’s important to the group. We have... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
December 12, 2017 at 12:14 am
• 4 comments

Credit where it's due to nonprofits

Credit where it's due to nonprofits
Credit where it’s due to nonprofits! The New York Times reports this morning that nonprofit agencies of all kinds–not just those explicitly targeting violence–have reduced the crime rate in American cities. The Nonprofiteer is in shock that the sector is finally getting a tiny piece of its due!
By Nonprofiteer,
November 10, 2017 at 9:54 am
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Dear Nonprofiteer, Are we still tax exempt? In what state?

Dear Nonprofiteer, During the 1980’s, our university located in Washington, DC, instructed its alumni affiliates to seek their individual tax exempt status. Our PA affiliate did so. Yet, around 2001, the university instructed all affiliates to get rid of individual tax exempt statuses and assume its. At that time, our affiliate leadership asked the university’s... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
June 27, 2017 at 8:14 pm
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Hoarding endowments: How poor students and taxpayers preserve the wealth of private higher education

Hoarding endowments: How poor students and taxpayers preserve the wealth of private higher education
Buried in this story about elite universities’ practice of hoarding endowments while squeezing money from Uncle Sam and poor students is a nugget of information on which the otherwise all-knowing Nonprofiteer has previously failed to focus: that colleges and universities are exempt from the 5% distribution rule which controls hoarding by foundations.  Institutions of higher... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
August 11, 2016 at 11:05 am
• 1 comment

Harvard, free tuition and affirmative action

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By Nonprofiteer,
May 24, 2016 at 1:54 pm
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Local governments and nonprofit organizations: can this marriage be saved?

Local governments and nonprofit organizations: can this marriage be saved?
Local governments and nonprofit organizations: can this marriage be saved? As the Nonprofiteer predicted long ago, the fights between local governments and nonprofit organizations over taxes are growing rather than subsiding.  This article about Louisiana’s re-evaluation of property tax exemptions for nonprofits and this one about a Louisiana hospital’s decision to give up its 501c3... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
March 8, 2016 at 12:53 pm
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Dear Nonprofiteer, Can a nonprofit exclude someone for being a pain in the ass?

Dear Nonprofiteer, Can a nonprofit exclude someone for being a pain in the ass?
Dear Nonprofiteer, Can a nonprofit exclude someone for being difficult?  I am involved in a nonprofit organization through a high school band program.  We have a parent whose student has been removed from the program due to grades.  Do we have to allow the mother to attend our monthly booster meeting?  We are a public... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
February 27, 2016 at 11:53 am
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Property Tax Exemption for Nonprofits: The Beat Goes On

Property Tax Exemption for Nonprofits: The Beat Goes On
This review of the past year’s decisions about what constitutes a “charity” for the purposes of property tax exemption reminds the Nonprofiteer that ravenous municipal and state governments are not going to look away any time soon from the wealthy hospitals and universities in their midst. Perhaps they’ll continue to negotiate PILOTs (Payments in Lieu... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
December 30, 2015 at 11:52 am
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Who's missing from the education conversation? Parents, students, non-AFT teachers and progressive philanthropy

Who's missing from the education conversation? Parents, students, non-AFT teachers and progressive philanthropy
Who’s missing from the education conversation?  Parents, students, non-AFT teachers and progressive philanthropy.  Is it possible that lack of representation pre-determines the outcome? Thanks to our colleague Rick Cohen at the Nonprofit Quarterly for his sound critique of a Forbes-sponsored forum on the subject.
By Nonprofiteer,
December 8, 2014 at 2:35 pm
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Generosity or Democracy: Beneficiaries Are Not Citizens

Generosity or Democracy: Beneficiaries Are Not Citizens
This op-ed from Sunday’s New York Times is the clearest assessment yet of the troubling choice posed by our reliance on private donors to supply public goods: generosity or democracy?  Of course we’re grateful for assistance in the fight against malaria, or in efforts to improve our parks; but when we’re always depending on the... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
December 2, 2014 at 12:24 pm
• Leave a comment
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  • Meet The Blogger

    Nonprofiteer

    The Nonprofiteer is Kelly Kleiman, principal of NFP Consulting, which provides Board development, strategic planning and fund-raising services to charities and philanthropies. Through her consulting practice and in her guise as The Nonprofiteer, Kelly has spent the past 25-plus years helping small and mid-sized nonprofits organize themselves better and raise more money. These days she focuses especially on helping them use high-skill volunteers. Kelly is also a lawyer and freelance journalist whose reportage and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and other dailies; in magazines including In These Times and Chicago Philanthropy; in the alternative press; on websites including the Huffington Post; and on the radio, including the BBC and WBEZ Chicago Public Radio. She and her fellow "Dueling Critic" Jonathan Abarbanel present a weekly podcast of their reviews of Chicago theater at DuelingCritics.net. Earlier in her career she was dean of admissions of IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and Executive Director of the Chicago Children’s Choir, and practiced real estate and zoning law with the firm of Rudnick & Wolfe. Kelly holds undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Chicago. She was a founding Board member of the Association of Consultants to Nonprofits and also served for 5 years on the Board of the Association for Women Journalists–Chicago. She can be reached ("Dear Nonprofiteer . . .") at KellyNFP@yahoo.com.

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    • Nonprofiteer

      February 6, 2020 at 12:00 am

      In reply to Leubna Asad:
      No, they cannot make mandatory any requirement to pay or participate: it's a public school, so children can't be excluded…
      Read the story | Reply to this comment
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      Leubna Asad

      February 5, 2020 at 12:00 am

      so, let me understand ... my child’s booster club at a public school for a sports team has issued a…
      Read the story | Reply to this comment

    • Nonprofiteer

      November 14, 2019 at 12:00 am

      In reply to Ton gen:
      I don't have enough facts to answer. It's certainly legal for a booster club to solicit contributions from parents, and…
      Read the story | Reply to this comment
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      Ton gen

      November 13, 2019 at 12:00 am

      So, if a booster club is asked by staff to collect student fees for art supplies, then turns the fees…
      Read the story | Reply to this comment

    • KennethFredrick

      December 11, 2017 at 12:00 am

      Volunteering is the better work opportunity to help the communities. Becoming a volunteer always makes you feel better. There are…
      Read the story | Reply to this comment
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