Improving the Regulations
In addition to the general suggestions here, each "Current Controversies" analysis in the "Easing the Burden" section of this site includes specific actions you can take to help
effect a positive outcome for a specific issue.
If You Are a Legislator
- Support coordinated regulations and shared regulatory mechanisms with other states.
- Ensure government agencies use the most efficient possible regulatory processes to keep registration costs
down.
- Insist that regulations have the minimum possible impact on NPOs while providing for reasonable oversight.
- Promote the development and adoption of model acts governing nonprofit organization activities, and work to
institute positive change by altering the models rather than only your state's laws.
- Encourage legislation that exempts small nonprofit organizations from most or all regulatory requirements.
- Recognize the critical role played by NPOs in American society, and work to strengthen the nonprofit sector.
If You Are a Regulator
- Participate in or support efforts to harmonize state regulations through NASCO and other
joint programs.
- Withdraw all support for regulation of NPO activity by jurisdictions smaller than states.
- Don't suggest or imply to the public that an effort to harmonize or minimize NPO regulation is an effort to
abolish all such regulation.
- Participate in online discussion forums that explore ambiguous, questionable, or potentially new issues in
NPO legal regulation.
- Ensure that your agency maintains an up-to-date Web site that presents frequently requested information for
NPOs, including forms.
- Don't make all NPOs suffer beyond reason for the misdeeds of a tiny minority, or use such cases to suggest
or imply to the public that such misdeeds are common.
- Embrace shared state registries, hopefully supported with online form submission, as a mechanism for decreasing
data processing, storage, and retrieval costs.
- Encourage legislators to develop laws that are unambiguous, restrained, and allow you to coordinate your activities
with regulators from other jurisdictions.
If you are an Attorney or Accountant
- Participate in online discussion forums that explore ambiguous, questionable, or potentially new issues in
NPO legal regulation.
- Establish a Web site in which you not only promote your services, but also present original writings on topics
useful for NPOs.
- Make sure NPOs you represent are using the Multi-State Filer Project's Unified Registration
Statement when they register out-of-state as charitable soliciting organizations, and participate in other programs
that coordinate or harmonize regulation among states.
If You Are a Nonprofit Organization Administrator or Advisor
- Use the Multi-State Filer Project's Unified Registration Statement when registering with
states as a charitable soliciting organization. Use the MFP's unified annual reporting form when that is developed.
- Participate in online discussion forums that explore ambiguous, questionable, or potentially new issues in
NPO legal regulation.
- Have your organization join or otherwise support nonprofit sector advocate organizations, like American
Charities for Reasonable Fundraising Regulation and the National Federation of Nonprofits,
in their efforts to harmonize and minimize the regulation of NPOs.
- Demonstrate your organization's accountability by posting your IRS annual informational return and application
for tax-exempt status online.
- Write to the IRS in support of online submission
and public retrieval mechanisms for NPO annual tax returns using a national database.
- Establish and use your Web site to promote not just your own mission, but the nonprofit sector as a whole,
by helping the general public understand its importance.
If You Are Another Interested Person
- Volunteer at the nonprofit organization of your choice!
- Write to your state legislators to make them aware
of the undue burden faced by legitimate NPOs and the cost of wasteful duplication by state agencies, and that there
are alternatives to the current regulatory mechanisms.
- Participate in online discussion forums that explore ambiguous, questionable, or potentially new issues in
NPO legal regulation.
Improving This Site
Send in Suggestions
You can send suggestions by email to the site administrator, Eric Mercer, at <nporeg@muridae.com>,
or by using the feedback form.
Maintaining One of the State Pages
Each of the individual state pages is maintained by a volunteer who is familiar with the regulations for nonprofit
organizations in that state, and keeps reasonably up to date on changes. This project is feasible primarily because
it depends on the expertise of individual supporters. If you would like maintain one of the pages that currently
has no one supporting it, please contact the site administrator at <nporeg@muridae.com>.
A page that provides guidelines for contributors is available.
Past and Present Supporters
I'd like to thank the people and organizations who have been participating in this project to develop an online
compendium of nonprofit organization regulations. They have allowed me to publish their written works online, have
provided me with advice and encouragement, and more, and this site could not exist without them. I may have missed
some people, and I apologize profusely if I have! Please remind me. The list is in no particular order. Please
note that those listed below don't necessarily agree with or endorse my personal opinions or the other writings
at this site, nor may their employers. They all share, however, a desire to better inform the general public, and
those involved in the nonprofit sector, about important issues in nonprofit organization regulation and operations.
- Geoffrey Peters (American Charities for Reasonable Fundraising Regulation)
- Lee Cassidy (National Federation of Nonprofits)
- Putnam Barber (Internet Nonprofit Center; Evergreen State Society)
- Harriet Bograd (Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York)
- Robert Tigner (Association of Direct Response Fundraising Counsel)
- Carl Brody (Assistant County Attorney; Pinellas County, Florida)
- Ed Mazlish (Perlman & Perlman)
- Dan Moore (Registrar of Charitable Organizations, New Mexico)
- Seth Perlman (Perlman & Perlman)
- David Ormstedt (Assistant Attorney General; Connecticut)
- Jeffrey Gray (Assistant Attorney General; Utah)
- and also the many participants in the cyber-accountability and CharityLaw mail-lists.
Supporting the Site Administrator
The person who administers this site does so on a voluntary basis from his own home office. Since he works for
a tiny NPO, and has a commensurate salary, any assistance from the NPO community would be greatly appreciated.
Some items for which support is currently needed are:
- Hosting the Web site. Cost: $300 per year.
- A copy of "Fund-Raising Regulation: A State-by-State Handbook of Registration Forms, Requirements, and
Procedures" by Seth Perlman and Betsy Hills Bush from John Wiley and Sons. The latest
edition is 1996, and there have been 1997
and 1998 supplemental updates
published. Cost: $345 for the handbook, and $125 for each supplement.
- A copy of "The Law of Fund-Raising
(2nd ed.)" by Bruce R. Hopkins from John Wiley and Sons. There have been 1996, 1997
and 1998 supplemental updates
published. Cost: $145 for the book, and $65 for each supplement.
- A copy of "The Law of Tax-Exempt
Organizations (7th ed.)" by Bruce R. Hopkins from John Wiley and Sons. This was published in 1998.
- A subscription to "State
Tax Trends for Nonprofits" from National Council of Nonprofit Associations. Cost: $75 for an annual subscription
of 4 issues.
- A subscription to "The Philanthropy Monthly" from NonProfit Report Inc. Cost: $84 for an annual subscription
of 10 issues.
- Anything else you think would help the administrator and other contributors to improve this site, including
books or subscriptions to other nonprofit organization magazines and newsletters. Suggestions about how to improve
this site are very welcome!
This site is not maintained as part of the services of a tax-exempt organization, but is simply a personal project,
so your contributions aren't tax deductible. However, they may just make your own life easier by helping to provide
a better public resource for yourself and others.
| Online Compendium of Federal and State Regulations for U.S. Nonprofit Organizations |
http://www.muridae.com/nporegulation/
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