Could one man really do that much damage to an Arizona institution as high profile and important as the Fiesta Bowl? More likely, the nonprofit scandal of the year was a group effort fueled by a dysfunctional board. The Fiesta Bowl board bears all the hallmarks of a board more interested in administering than governing the organization. Still, there are lessons to be learned from the Fiesta Bowl’s governance and oversight failures.
Daily Dose of Nonprofit Law
Category Archives: Compensation Setting Procedures
Setting Nonprofit Executive Compensation
In light of the heightened interest of the I.R.S., Congress, state regulators, and the media in executive compensation, as well as heightened penalties, exempt organizations should strongly consider increasing the amount of time and attention they devote to investigating, deliberating, documenting, and reporting executive compensation. To facilitate the careful review that is demanded, tax-exempt organizations that employ an executive staff should consider implementing the following practices and procedures:
Non-profit Directors and Trustees – Should Board Service Pay?
Trustee compensation is a sensitive topic in the philanthropic world. Many people believe that board members should serve out of a sense of giving back to their community. However, the philanthropic world is diverse and there are many positions that require extraordinary talent and an extraordinary time commitment to lead them. Nonprofit organizations are also increasingly complex and subject to complex rules and that make significant demands on that talent. Increasingly, board members face the potential for liability if they fail to fully adhere to these complex and fast changing rules.
Excess Benefit Transactions and Intermediate Sanctions
Before 1996, the only option the IRS had when faced with a tax-exempt organization that had violated the private inurement rules was to do nothing or to revoke the organization’s tax-exempt status, a penalty that often punished the organization’s beneficiaries more than the insiders who benefited from the inurement. To cure this problem, Code Section 4958 was added to the Internal Revenue Code in 1996 to provide the IRS with an “intermediate” tool between the extremes of either ignoring the problem or revoking the nonprofit’s tax-exempt status.
Quick Tips for Setting Nonprofit Executive Compensation
To ensure its decisions will stand up to the scrutiny of the media, regulators, and donors, and protect the employee as well as the board from personal liability, nonprofits that employ executive staff should consider implementing practices and procedures that ensure its executive compensation procedures are thorough, well-documented, and free of conflicts of interest.
More Congressional Outrage Over Nonprofit Executive Compensation
As evidenced by the recent media coverage of the salaries paid to CEOs of four nonprofits that contract with the government to deliver U.S. foreign aid, nonprofit executive compensation continues to be an area of keen interest for the media and for key members of Congress.
