Charting a Decade of Online Donations

Charting a Decade of Online Donations
November 23, 2011, 11:04 am
By Cody Switzer
Only 4 percent of donors had given online in 2001. This year, about 65 percent have given to charity through the Internet.

That’s one of the comparisons made in a new graphic from Network for Good, a fund-raising and volunteerism Web site that celebrates its 10th anniversary this month.

In 2001, the average donation through the site was $226. But this year the average gift is $73, a change that Network for Good interprets as a sign that online giving has “gone mainstream.”

Here’s the full graphic:

Questions and Scrutiny Grow Over Monroe County Nonprofit Development Corporation

A lawyer with close ties to Monroe County forms a nonprofit local development corporation to handle a $99 million county contract. He names himself and two friends as the board of directors. The friends are not told of their roles and never participate in a proceeding of the board. One of them is aghast to learn seven years later that he was ever a director.

The scenario illustrates the convoluted origins of Upstate Telecommunications Corp. and raises questions about the validity of the corporation and its 16-year contract to manage the county's vast information technology network, according to nearly a dozen experts in nonprofit law, including lawyers who regulated nonprofit corporations for New York state.

Specifically, how did Upstate Telecommunications become functional without input from its founding directors? And did the directors who approved contracting with the county have the authority to act?

Answers remain elusive because the corporation claims it cannot locate records that could shed light on the matter, and its incorporating attorney, Michael Townsend, has declined to answer questions about the founding.

The notion that a local development corporation with a multimillion-dollar county contract would be formed unbeknownst to most of its founding directors baffled experts briefed on the scenario.

All of them cast the situation as an example of poor corporate governance, but most agreed that questions of the corporation's validity would not alone unravel its contract — a scenario with potentially dire consequences for the county.

"The consequences of a corporation not being a valid corporation are sort of unclear," said Amy Lavine, a senior staff attorney at Albany Law School's Government Law Center, where she writes extensively about nonprofit public benefit corporations. "A court might treat it like a corporation if it's been acting like one. In the real world, how do you undo a $99 million contract that's halfway done?"

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has subpoenaed Upstate Telecommunications for documentation about its founding and finances as part of an investigation into Monroe County local development corporations with state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Read more here.

NY comptroller says late checks hurt nonprofits

NY comptroller says late checks hurt nonprofits
Nov. 15, 2011, 3:01 a.m. EST
AP
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says late contract approvals and payments by the state are hurting nonprofit providers and jeopardizing services.

DiNapoli says state agencies last year were on average six months late in approving nine out of 10 contracts valued at $50,000 or more, often after services were provided.

An analysis of the first half of 2011 shows nearly 90 percent of contracts approved by the comptroller were submitted late by state agencies.

DiNapoli says nonprofits operate on thin margins and provide basic services ranging from health care clinics to work programs, with 22,000 active grant contracts totaling $16.8 billion.

The nonprofit sector employed 1.25 million people statewide last year.

You can access the article by Clicking Here.

Community Profits on Strength of Nonprofit Sector

Community profits on strength of nonprofit sector
Business First by Tracey Drury, Buffalo Business First Reporter
Date: Wednesday, November 2, 2011, 3:13pm EDT.
Tracey DruryBuffalo Business First Reporter - Business FirstEmail

Today’s the day I finally exhale, as the final pieces of our Million Dollar Nonprofits research report go out the door to the printer.
But by day’s end, I’ll be holding my breath once again - waiting for the report to land in the hands of the region’s nonprofit community. The report, to many, represents sort of a report card on how those execs are doing in their daily jobs of running a $2 billion sector.
The report is a compilation of several months of research into the region’s largest nonprofit organizations, each with revenue of at least $1 million. The 282 agencies on the list this year have a major economic impact in the eight-county region, employing nearly 53,000 people and providing services to hundreds of thousands.
And they do it all without profits in mind.
Our list includes a wide variety of organiations, including human service agencies providing programs for poor, individuals with disabilities and seniors, as well as cultural and arts groups, health-related organizations and others that work on business or economic development issues. Narrowing the field on what types of organizations to include has been a work in progress over the past 10 years, as we’ve included, then taken out again such groups as hospitals and health systems and health insurers - despite their status as nonprofit corporations.
Our list is part of the All About Nonprofits special publication, which also includes a list of the top corporate philanthropists in the region; foundations ranked by total grants paid; and a list of nonprofit fundraising events for 2012.
One of the most closely watched pieces of this report every year is the salary listings. Though we don’t get as many complaints any more about why we list them, I almost always hear from people thanking us for helping shed some light on compensation. As we said before, these agencies operate without profits in mind, but that doesn’t mean the executives working there are doing it for free.

COAE Conference October 19th

Gov's Nonprofit Compensation Probe

WSJ.com reported that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's probe of executive pay at nonprofits is bumping up against some of the state's best-known charities with strong ties to the most powerful people in Albany, including the speaker of the Assembly and the governor himself.

Two weeks ago, a state task force named by Mr. Cuomo began asking nonprofits to submit detailed information to the Cuomo administration about their executive pay levels and compensation policies. The task force said it is collecting information on a rolling basis from all nonprofits that receive funding from the state.

But one nonprofit that had not received a request by Wednesday is HELP USA, a homeless housing group founded by Mr. Cuomo in the 1980s. The governor's sister, Maria Cuomo Cole, is the group's chairperson, and its board of directors includes Mr. Cuomo's campaign treasurer Richard Sirota and Jeffrey Sachs, one of his closest health-care advisers, according to HELP's website.

HELP operates homeless shelters and develops low-income housing around the nation and gets most of its $71 million budget from federal, state and city contracts and grants, according to its tax filings.

The nonprofit paid its chief executive, Laurence Belinsky, $546,000 in 2008—including a $157,000 bonus—and $508,000 in 2009, according to IRS filings. His salary is more than 40% higher than the median salary of chief executives of nonprofits based in the Northeast with operating budgets of more than $13 million, according to Charity Navigator, a prominent charity database.

Mr. Belinsky couldn't be reached for comment.

Another powerful group that hasn't received a letter is the Greater New York Hospital Association, which represents many Medicaid-dependent hospitals in the city region and pays its chief executive $2 million a year, according to tax filings.

After a reporter inquired about the status of data requests to HELP and the hospital association, a state official said on Thursday that the task force had mailed letters to the groups.

Meanwhile, one of the first groups to get the request was the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, a social service group run by William Rapfogel, the husband of the chief of staff to Democratic Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver. Mr. Rapfogel received a $435,000 pay package in 2009, tax filings show.

A spokesman for the taskforce said all nonprofits that receive government money would eventually receive a request for information.

"There are thousands of not-for-profits that we are looking at, so we are sending the letters in waves on a rolling basis," said the spokesman.

Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause, which advocates for transparent government, said the governor's investigation would be successful only if all charities are treated equally.

"You need an objective standard by which to judge what is or is not excessive compensation. Where are we headed with this?" Ms. Lerner said.

Jeff Stonecash, a Syracuse University political science professor, said Mr. Cuomo's probe was treading on politically sensitive ground. "There are some pitfalls here, but there's a lot of gain if he can get the right headlines," he said.

Josh Vlasto, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said the investigation would be fair.

"Politics never got in the way of investigations before, and it won't now. If you think otherwise, just ask Pedro Espada," Mr. Vlasto said, referring to the former Democratic Bronx state senator whom Mr. Cuomo investigated while attorney general.

Mr. Cuomo's investigative foray into state-subsidized charities has been the object of much interest and anxiety around the nonprofit world. The governor has promised a wide-ranging review, an undertaking that could be handled by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, whose office regulates charities.

The governor has been praised for drawing more attention to nonprofit executive pay as it has stretched deeper into six and seven figures. But, depending on how Mr. Cuomo navigates those loyalties and rivalries within the nonprofit world, the task force also carries political risk.

"I can't see that he isn't smart enough or ethical enough to see that it would be problematic to target only organizations with whom he has no connection," said Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, a Lower Manhattan Democrat who introduced a bill this year to limit compensation for hospital executives.

Mr. Cuomo assembled the task force in early August in the wake of a New York Times article that scrutinized the executive compensation of a Medicaid-financed nonprofit group that reportedly paid two of its top executives close to $1 million a year. He put two of his most trusted aides on the task force, Financial Services superintendent Benjamin Lawsky and State Inspector General Ellen Biben.

But the inquiry's goal hasn't been defined. The task force may hold hearings and issue a report, leading to potential regulatory changes and legislation.

Mayor Brown vetoes bill that would aid arts groups

BuffaloNews.com reported about a new wrinkle surfaced in City Hall's plan to provide grants to dozens of arts and cultural groups after Mayor Byron W. Brown vetoed a Common Council bill.

Brown's office stressed that the mayor remains committed to providing one-time grants to arts organizations, but he objects to the way the Council has structured the aid.

As one of their final actions before leaving for summer break, lawmakers late last month unanimously approved a plan to channel $200,000 to city-based arts groups.

Under an informal deal that was hatched between the Council and the Brown administration, lawmakers would provide $100,000 from their budget lines, while the executive branch would provide another $100,000.

Mayoral spokesman Michael J. DeGeorge said today that the administration remains committed to providing the money. But he said Brown objects the Council specifying how the entire $200,000 sum will be spent.

Lawmakers insist that the money should be channeled to 27 city-based arts groups that saw their Erie County funding eliminated. The Council wants to use the Funds for the Arts, a consortium of local foundations that has distributed aid to cultural groups, as a pass-through entity for the city aid.

While the mayor has "no problem" with any of the groups on the Council's list, DeGeorge said, Brown believes that he should have the right to establish his own process for distributing the $100,000 that his office is providing. All arts groups that are currently on the Council's list would be welcome to apply, as would other Buffalo-based cultural groups, DeGeorge said.

Read more here.