December 29, 2009

Safety of Canadian Humanitarian Workers - important for people, reputation and funders

In 2009 I attended the Interaction Forum held in Washington, D.C.  The Interaction Forum is the largest gathering of US and international NGOS involved with international development.  I met some very interesting people and learned quite a lot.  One of the important themes of the conference is that security is increasingly important concern for charities doing international operations – security for your employees, expat workers, national staff and beneficiaries.  To summarize, for those who do not want to read more than one paragraph - aid organizations who don’t not take security seriously probably should be getting out of the humanitarian aid area.  Your employees will not want to work for you, funders will not want to fund you and you may be unnecessarily endangering the lives of national staff and beneficiaries.  I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago when I reviewed a large CIDA draft contribution agreement - what was interesting was that in project conducted in a moderately dangerous country about 1/4 of the contribution agreement related to security and safety. 

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December 28, 2009

Tax shelter gifting arrangement revocations

In Newsletter 33, CRA identified various registered charities that have had their registered charity status revoked for involvement in tax shelter gifting arrangements.

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CRA accepting comments on Guidance CPS-028, Fundraising by Registered Charities, till April 2010

The CRA noted in Newsletter 33 that they are accepting comments on their new Guidance CPS-028.

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December 23, 2009

Donations to Prescribed Universities Outside Canada - CRA updates publication

The CRA has updated its publication “Donations to Prescribed Universities Outside Canada”  http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/rc191/rc191-09e.pdf 

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December 21, 2009

CRA Income Tax Technical News No. 41 - rulings on proposed legislation, definition of tax shelters

CRA Income Tax Technical News No. 41 was released December 23, 2009 and discusses rulings (opinions) on proposed legislative amendments, the definition of “Tax Shelter” – Subsection 237.1(1) and donation of flow-through shares – subparagraph 38(a.1)(i), subsection 248(35) through (41) and section 237.1

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December 20, 2009

Being Good at Doing Good Charity Conference in Toronto - preliminary speakers list revealed

I am helping organize the CLIP conference Being Good at Doing Good: Safeguarding Yourself and Your Charity in a Complex World Feb. 22-23, 2010 in Toronto.. It promises to be a very exciting and affordable two day conference with many interesting speakers from around the world providing thoughts on governance, ethics, financial management, internal controls and foreign activities for Canadian charities. Here is a partial list of speakers that was just posted http://www.capacitybuilders.ca/clip/documents/SpeakerListing_Dec15.pdf and if you want to register you can go to http://www.capacitybuilders.ca/clip/clip-news.php  For updates see http://www.capacitybuilders.ca/clip/conference/index.php 

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Financial Action Task Force Report on Terrorist Financing

Here is a copy of a report on terrorist financing entitled Financial Action Task Force Report on Terrorist Financing

Some resources on money laundering and terrorism that may be helpful to charities in Canada

From the basic to the indepth there are numerous resources on the web that can help Canadian charities avoid money laundering and terrorism.

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Report on combatting abuse of non-profit organizations for terrorism-need transparency in NPO sector

Here is an interesting report from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on COMBATING THE ABUSE OF NON-PROFIT ORGANISATIONS International Best Practices from 2002.  It highlights the importance of transparency in non-profit sectors and financial management in thwarting abuse of charities.

Sample Fraud Avoidance Policy for a Canadian non-profit organization

Here is a sample fraud policy from the UK Charity Finance Directors’ Group.  While Canadian non-profits and charities do not need to have a fraud avoidance policy this example may be of use to some and certainly being aware of the content is advisable.  It is estimated that fraud costs Canadian non-profits at least 5% of revenue.