Regulation of Nonprofits and Philanthropy Project

The Regulation of Nonprofits and Philanthropy Project conducts research on the regulatory frameworks that govern the nonprofit sector with the goals of (1) systematically documenting current regulations across states, (2) developing research tools to access those regulations and promote research through the nonprofit Legal Compendium, (3) conducting research on regulation of nonprofits and philanthropy to deepening our understanding of how policies impact nonprofits, and (4) promoting the diffusion of research and best practices through publications and convenings.

Background and Support

This project brings together cross-disciplinary groups of scholars and experts to document and understand how regulation effects nonprofit organizations and philanthropy through empirical research. This work is a partnership of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy and its National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) at the Urban Institute, and the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University, with support from the Mott Foundation.

Advisors:

• Alan J. Abramson, George Mason University
• Angela Bies, University of Maryland
• Nathan Dietz, University of Maryland
• Leslie Friedlander, Office of Oklahoma Attorney General
• Brian Galle, Georgetown University
• Karen Gano, (formerly Connecticut Attorney General Office)
• Karin Kunstler Goldman, New York State Department of Law, Charities Bureau
• Ruth Madrigal, KPMG (formerly U.S. Treasury Department)
• Amy Coates Madsen, Maryland Nonprofits
• Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, Notre Dame University
• George Mitchell, City University of New York
• Cinthia Schuman Ottinger, Aspen Institute
• Marc Owens, Loeb & Loeb, LLP (formerly IRS Exempt Organizations Division)
• Sue Santa, Girl Scouts of America (formerly Council on Foundations)
• Steven R. Smith, (formerly APSA)
• Eugene Steuerle, Urban Institute

Project History

The Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute and Columbia University’s Charities Regulatory and Oversight Project joined forces in 2015 to create and co-lead the Regulation of Nonprofits and Philanthropy Project at the Urban Institute with funding by the Mott Foundation. Both entities promoted research and knowledge sharing and had programs that brought together charities officials to discuss issues affecting the Nonprofit Sector.

Background

Shortly after its founding by Elizabeth Boris in 1996, the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy (CNP) and its flagship program, the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), began to host twice yearly meetings with state charities officials and Internal Revenue Service officials, primarily to discuss data and reporting issues on Form 990 affecting the nonprofit sector. These sessions were augmented by Emerging Issues Seminars on a variety of policy issues facing the nonprofit sector that were co-hosted by CNP and the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University.

Inaugurated with the first conference to convene state attorneys general, foundations, and nonprofit leaders, in 2006 Columbia University launched the Charities Regulatory and Oversight Project as part of the National State Attorney’s General Program. The conference and the Project at the time were supported by the Ford Foundation, C.S. Mott Foundation, New York Community Trust and the Surdna Foundation. Hosting regular meetings and trainings for state charities officials, the Project developed conferences with state and federal regulators, practitioners and academics in attendance. In 2013, the Project hosted a major research conference on the Future of State Charities Regulation; those papers may be found at [cite to Columbia Academic Commons- all the papers are listed together and individually].

Cindy M. Lott, founder and director of the Columbia University project within the National State Attorneys General Program, initiated a research collaboration with CNP led by Elizabeth Boris to conduct a ground breaking study of state charity offices resulting in the report: "State Regulation and Enforcement in the Charitable Sector." (see below).

Timeline

Phase One

The first phase of the research focused on state attorneys’ general jurisdiction over the charitable sector but expanded the scope of the project to encompass the entire regulatory framework of the charitable sector, including all state and federal charities officials and jurisdiction.

Results from a large-scale survey identified existing research, needs, and gaps that serves as the basis for the report, "State Regulation and Enforcement in the Charitable Sector" by Cindy M. Lott, Elizabeth T. Boris et. al. With the data from the study serving as the foundation, a major meeting was planned that resulted in reports, articles, and a regulatory conference planned in collaboration with the Federal Trade Commission.

Phase Two

In the second phase of the Project, portions of the Legal Compendium were updated and research was published in various fora, including two online briefs - "Bifurcation of State Regulation of Charities: Divided Regulatory Authority Over Charities and Its Impact on Charitable Solicitation Law", and "State Regulation of the Charitable Sector: Enforcement, Outreach and Staffing". Research was presented at major sector, regulatory, and legal education venues and blogs helped disseminate the work.

Phase Three

In this third phase of the Project, the project held a symposium on the Future of Regulation in the United States with research papers presented by major scholars and practitioners that will be published in a special issue of Nonprofit Policy Forum. We initiated questions on Urban’s Nonprofit Trends and Impacts survey to learn about interactions of nonprofits and government and the impact of regulations on nonprofit organizations. In addition, the Legal Compendium is being expanded with digital text of the statutes affecting nonprofits which will enable more detailed research on regulatory issues.

The Database

The Legal Compendium was created as a downloadable Excel spreadsheet, accessed by clicking the "Legal Compendium Version 3.0" button with statutory citations showing the following information for each of the 56 jurisdictions featured in this research: the grant of jurisdiction to attorneys general and other state agencies, the registration and reporting requirements applicable to charitable entities and their fundraisers, the oversight responsibilities of state charity regulators in connection with certain transactions involving charitable entities, the obligations of charities to notify the attorney general of those transactions, and some enforcement remedies available to charity regulators.

In the current phase, the Legal Compendium has been updated with the most current data available and is being enhanced with digital text data that will be available in late 2025.

An interactive version of the compendium is hosted via Airtable and can be accessed by clicking "Digitized Legal Compendium". It allows you to explore the legal compendium by grouping, filtering, and sorting the records. It comes prepopulated with a record of all nonprofit regulations grouped by State and Subcategory. Each row in the table corresponds to a single piece of legislation regulating nonprofits while each column contains additional information about each legislation.

• Group: Click the Group button to organize the data based on the values in a specific column (e.g., grouping all entries by "State").
• Filter: Click the Filter button to show only the records that meet your criteria (e.g., filtering to only show entries where "Regulation Indicator" is "Yes").
• Descriptions: Mouse over the Information bubble to read descriptions of each column’s contents.