Over the next two weeks at the Non-Profit Build Up, we will be exploring the context and common concerns on “Cross-Border Grantmaking: Due Diligence and Legal Considerations for Global Grantmaking”. This week’s episode is part one of a two-part information-packed session led by Build Up’s CEO (and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ General Counsel), A. Nicole Campbell, and moderated by RPA’s Senior Vice President and Corporate Secretary, Renee Karibi-Whyte. This presentation was originally recorded in April 2022. This is a two part series.
Nic provides an overview of the global giving landscape; reviews definitions and descriptions of expenditure responsibility and equivalency determination, which are concepts that arise frequently within cross-border grant making; and reminds us about compliance considerations to keep in mind when making international grants. You won’t want to miss it.
Listen to the podcasts here:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Resources:
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Read the podcast transcription below:
Part One
-Upbeat Intro Music-
Nic Campbell: You’re listening to the Nonprofit Build Up podcast, and I’m your host, Nic Campbell. I want to support movements that can interrupt cycles of injustice and inequity, and shift power towards vulnerable and marginalized communities. I’ve spent years working in and with nonprofits and philanthropies, and I know how important infrastructure is to outcomes. On this show, we’ll talk about how to build capacity to transform the way you and your organization work.
Stef Wong: Hi, everyone. It’s Stef, Build Up’s Executive Portfolio Liaison. This week on the Nonprofit Build Up, we are bringing part one of a two-part informative session led by Build Up’s CEO and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ (RPA) General Counsel, A. Nicole Campbell, and moderated by RPA’s Senior Vice President and Corporate Secretary, Renee Karibi-Whyte.
Stef Wong: This presentation was originally recorded as a webinar in April 2022. It is the first part of a two part series. The Campbell Law Firm serves as outsourced general counsel to brave nonprofits and philanthropies, and RPA is one of our brave clients. RPA is a nonprofit organization that currently advises and manages more than 400 million in annual giving by individuals, families, corporations, and foundations, whose mission is to help donors create thoughtful, effective philanthropy throughout the world.
Stef Wong: Nic provides an overview of the global giving landscape, reviews definitions and descriptions of expenditure responsibility, and equivalency determination, which are concepts that arise frequently within cross border grantmaking, and reminds us about compliance considerations to keep in mind when making international grants. You won’t want to miss it. With that, here’s part one of cross border grantmaking, due diligence and legal considerations for global grantmaking.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Hello, everyone. Welcome to today’s webinar. We’re excited that you’re here. This is the third in a series of legal webinars that we’re doing to help donors create thoughtful and effective philanthropy in line with RPA’s mission. We have today, as we had with the other webinars, and you can go to the next slide, RPA’s General Counsel, Nic Campbell. She advises on the work of RPA, which includes a considerable amount of cross border work, both for our sponsored projects and the clients and partners we advise and manage their philanthropy.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Most recently, before coming to RPA, Nic was the Senior Director of Operations and Foundation Counsel for Dalio Philanthropies. Before that, she was the Deputy General Counsel of the Open Society Foundations, and there she provided strategic legal governance and operational advice to the global network of over 35 charitable organizations and foundations created by George Soros.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Nic is very well-versed in this topic. So I’m excited to have this discussion with her today.In addition to working as RPA’s General Counsel, Nic is also the Founder of Build Up Advisory Group, which specializes in strengthening organizational infrastructure for philanthropies and nonprofits more generally. So as I mentioned earlier, this is the third in this series of webinars. The first two were values-based contracting for grant makers and navigating grants that support advocacy to C3 and C4 organizations. The links to those prior webinars are in this deck that we’re going to send out after the webinar completes.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: So for today’s discussion, as with all the previous webinars, we’re really focused on helping to lay the groundwork to give people an understanding of the framework for this. So we’re going to really get deep and give you a lot of insight around the framework. We’re going to have lots of opportunities for questions throughout. I wanted to thank all of you for providing great questions when you registered because we did have probably the most questions we’ve ever had on this topic for any webinar we’ve ever done.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: We’re going to get into expenditure responsibility and equivalency determinations. We’re going to talk a little bit about how these items change, depending on who you’re giving to. We’re going to cover fiscal sponsors versus fiscal agents, sanctions considerations. Then we have some hypotheticals, where you’ll get a chance to show your knowledge. Again, we’ll have some time for questions at the end, and questions are always welcome throughout, and I’ll ask them as I can during the discussion.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Just first off, you can go to the next slide. Just to kind of set the framework a little bit, based on some recent studies, the foundation in the United States have given over $48 billion outside of the US, based on their most recent information I could find. That compares to about five billion from the United Kingdom, three billion from Canada, three billion from Germany, and one billion from the Netherlands. So the United States is a huge source around the globe of cross border grants.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: At the same time, and this is why it’s so important to talk about those intermediaries, because only 12% of those international grant dollars and, again, this information isn’t 100% current, it’s around about 2018 is latest information I could find, 12% of that goes directly to the organizations, and 88% of that amount goes through organizations that are acting as intermediaries. Well, that’s made cross border giving so difficult and so challenging, is the closing space for giving, with so many countries introducing regulations that limit foreign funds for the philanthropies.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: With kind of laying the groundwork, Nic, can you just start talking about what are the influences on global grantmaking? What are the things that people should be concerned about generally?
Nic Campbell: Yeah, sure. Thanks, Renee. So when we think about what influences global grantmaking, there are certain elements that we wanted to pull out. The first are US legal requirements, and we’ll be talking through those today. So we mean the tax code, IRS regulations, sanctions. So OFAC, for example, and FCPA. We also have to think about what are the restrictions or requirements within the country where the grantee might be located. So we have to understand the role that the governments play within grant awards. It’s not just private foundation to grantee and country. It’s also what’s the role of the government within that transaction?
Nic Campbell: Relatedly, we also have to consider the local landscape. What is happening on the ground, so to speak? Are we immediately post-conflict? Is there a war that’s happening within the country? What other practical considerations do we need to keep in mind? Then finally, we always have to think about the overall goal and purpose of the grants. What is the programmatic reason that we’re making this grant, and does it fit? Or how can we make it fit with all of the other pieces that we talked through? So the legal requirements, the restrictions within country, and the local landscape.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: So we’re going to talk about the legal framework first.
Nic Campbell: That’s right. So to pull that out a little bit more, when we talk about charitable organizations, we mean public charities and private foundations within the United States. Charitable organizations have one requirement. They have to use their funding for charitable purposes. That is going to be really important because every grant that you make, you have to ensure that the funding is being used for charitable purposes. This is why we’re asking due diligence questions. This is why we’re asking for reporting. This is why the application is in place to ensure that funding is being used for charitable purposes.
Nic Campbell: As I mentioned, there’s public charities and private foundations. What’s the difference between the two? Public charities receive funding from the general public, right? So the majority of their funding, a significant portion of their funding is coming from the general public or from the government. Private foundations, on the other hand, usually have a single source of support. So we mean like one family, a group of family members, one corporation, for example.
Nic Campbell: When you’re a private foundation, you’re making a grant to a non-US public charity. Under the tax code, there’s only two ways that you can make that grant without that grant award being seen as a taxable expenditure, meaning that you would be taxed on that grant award otherwise. The first is through something called expenditure responsibility that we’ll talk about in more detail. Then the second is equivalency determination that we’ll also talk through.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: How does a public charity giving a grant overseas change that discussion? Does a public charity that gives a grant overseas fall into the same bucket as the private foundation giving a grant overseas?
Nic Campbell: So the rules that I just talked through are only for private foundations, which means that public charities do not have those requirements. Still, when you were working with public charities that do a lot of cross border giving, you’ll see that they’re also exercising expenditure responsibility. The beauty, though, is that they have a lot more flexibility. They can determine when they can require pre-grant inquiry, for example, as we’re looking at these requirements under expenditure responsibility or just some other requirements within ER. They can say, “We don’t want to exercise that part of ER right now.” But private foundations do not have that ability.
Nic Campbell: When we’re talking about expenditure responsibility, what is it? It’s a federally mandated procedure that a private foundation, not a public charity, must follow for any grant management organization that is not a US public charity. So that means that a private foundation cannot say, “Well, we don’t want to exercise expenditure responsibility. It’s required by the IRS.” We’ll see the exception to that, which is the equivalency determination. But otherwise, you have to be an expenditure responsibility.What does it require? One, a pre-grant inquiry, which is pretty much what you’re doing when you’re asking for applications, information. You’re doing your diligence. You essentially want to be reassured that you are awarding funds to an organization that can complete the charitable purposes of the grant. That is what your pre-grant inquiry should be getting you to, that place of comfort.
Nic Campbell: The second is that you need a grant agreement. So some foundations may not have grant agreements when they’re awarding funds to public charities, for example. But in ER, you must use a grant agreement. You also have a requirement that there has to be separate accounting for grant funds. It doesn’t mean that you have to open up a separate bank account for these funds, but it doesn’t mean that you have to have a way to account. You, the grantee, has to have a way to account for the grant funds that it has received. So this is usually done through the books, right? We have fund accounting that’s happening there.
Nic Campbell: Then you also need annual grant reports from the grantee until all funds are expended. This is usually where you’ll see questions coming in about exponential responsibility. Like what if it’s a de minimis amount? Do we still have to provide report? Yes. The answer is yes. There is no exception for de minimis amounts. You have to have the grantee continue to report until all funds are expended or the funds are returned.
Nic Campbell: On the foundation side, there is an annual reporting requirement until the funds are fully expended to the IRS, to essentially tell the IRS what the grant was for, how much funds have been expended to date, and has there been any sort of diversion of those funds. Usually, in ER, we want to see project support. General support is very tricky because you have to understand this concept of you’re making a grant to an organization that is not deemed charitable, that’s not been deemed charitable by the IRS. So to give this sort of unrestricted pot of money to that organization would be problematic from the IRS rules and regulations. We really want to see project support grants, and we can get flexible in that, and we’ll talk about that. But you want to see a budget that’s really tying to the line items within that project.
Nic Campbell: Then finally, re-granting. Anytime you have ER in play, you make a grant to an organization that then will re-grant to other organizations. That second set of granting also takes on ER, right? So that means that all of the things that we just talked through have to be present in the grant agreements and in the grant relationship between that grantee and the sub grantees. So you do have to ask that question of do you, the sub grantees, have the ability to comply with ER.
Nic Campbell: Ultimately, all sorts of penalties, anything that’s coming out of ER or not compliance with ER, will happen to the foundation, not the non-US organization. So ultimately, the foundation does have a responsibility to ask questions and make sure that ER can be followed.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: So how extensive does the report need to be on how the grant funds are spent?
Nic Campbell: The report doesn’t have to be that extensive. You really have to just talk about how have you been spending the funds to date? How much funds are left over or remaining? Has there been any diversion? Have you used the funds for a purpose, other than what was intended, right? So it’s really the kind of report that you would see in the non-ER context, the kind of programmatic report that you’d want from your grantees anyway.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Okay. Then the other question from a participant, if there are funds left over, can those funds be reapplied to the organization for another use?
Nic Campbell: It could be, but you have to make sure that the use is papered, right? So that means that there is an amendment that has been done to the grant agreement, and you sort of go through that ER process again, but realizing that you don’t have to do another pre-grant inquiry because it’s the same organization. But if you’re applying for a different purpose, you still want to have that comfort as the funder that this grantee can satisfy the new purposes of the grant, so the repurposing that’s happening. So you can do it, but it has to be documented.
If you contrast that with something that’s happening with a public charity, if the public charity has grant funds that are leftover, you don’t necessarily need an amendment. Now, I do think it’s good practice to have an amendment in place. But you do have that flexibility to say, “Well, it’s only $200 of a million dollar grant.” You can just hold on to the 200 and use it for your charitable purposes, right? In ER, you just don’t have that flexibility.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Okay. Then we spoke a little bit about the reporting requirements being not that heavy. What are the financial reporting requirements? Are there specifics that are required?
Nic Campbell: No. It’s really just budget to actuals again. So basically, what was budgeted? What was actually spent? Have you actually been spending it in accordance with the budget and the proposed activities? So there’s nothing special that comes out of a report for ER, except that you do want to make sure – I think it is good practice to have someone, a representative, an officer of that organization that sign off and saying there have been no diversion of funds through whatever grant period or reporting period that you’re dealing with. But nothing in addition to what you have in a standard financial report.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Okay, thanks. Let’s move on to equivalency determination.
Nic Campbell: Of course. So we talked about expenditure responsibility, and we also said that the other way that a foundation committee grant to a non-US organization and non-US public charity is through requirements determination. So I’ll just flag here that ER also comes into play when you’re making a grant within the United States. So if you’re making a grant to an organization that is just not a US public charity, but it’s operating within the United States, you have to exercise ER.
Nic Campbell: Equivalency determination only comes into play when you’re dealing with an organization that has not been organized or incorporated within the United States. So you are basically making a good faith determination that the organization is a US public charity equivalent, right? Financial responsibility, you don’t have to comply with those rules. You’re now saying, “Listen, if this organization were formed in the United States, it would be the equivalent of a US public charity,” right? So what does that require? It means that you have to make sure that that organization is actually functioning like a US public charity. So you have to make sure that it has requirements within its governing documents, that it will only use funds a particular way, in the same way that the US public charity is required to use those funds.
Nic Campbell: If you remember back to one of the initial slides, we said charitable organizations must always make expenditures that are charitable. That’s the same requirement here. We want to make sure that the governing documents are saying every time this organization has an expenditure, it’s for charitable purpose. You also want to think about equivalency determination when you are thinking about investing in the organization itself, as opposed to a specific project. So you want to take a step back and say, “Can I actually provide a general support grant to this organization? Would I want to provide a general support grant, a more flexible funding to this organization?”
Nic Campbell: That’s when you also want to think about equivalency determination. Remember that with ER, you’re in that project support space. Now, you can get flexible, but you really do have to have this budget to actuals type of conversation when you’re in the ER space. You don’t need to have that kind of conversation. There are some safe harbors that you can apply in the equivalency determination or the ED space.
Nic Campbell: What does an ideal candidate for an ED look like? One, charitable organization, as we mentioned. We’d like to see that organizations have been in existence for five years or more. This does not mean that you can’t find startups, right? So I’ve also seen this applied in a way that limits funding for startup organizations, and that’s not true. It’s just that with five years or more in existence, you have actual financial information to go from. With startups, now you’re doing projections, right?
Nic Campbell: You want to make sure that this is a long-term relationship. Equivalency determinations, although they’re not something that you can do in a day or so probably, they do take a couple of weeks for the grantee to gather all that information. So if you’re going to put in this amount of effort, you want to make sure that it’s a long-term relationship, as opposed to a one-time kind of grant that you’re making. You will also want to make sure that this organization receives a large amount of its support from the general public. Remember that when you’re talking about public charities, the thing that makes them public charities is that they’re receiving a substantial amount of their support from the general public. You want to see that here as well.
Nic Campbell: Some sticking points that I always like to point out for ED candidates are, one, when they’re sharing documents about governance, how they’re operating, all these things that are going to establish with your charitable organization, their documents must be translated to English. So you want to think about, okay, do we have to pay those expenses? Should we pay those expenses? How will the organization basically comply with this ED process? You cannot have an organization that engages in political campaign activity, just like a public charity cannot. You do need financial information, right? So if you have an organization that’s doing amazing work, but they just don’t have those financial projections or financial information, they’re not going to be ideal when it comes to determination candidates.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Can you speak to roughly, in your experience, the comparison of how often equivalency determination is used versus ER?
Nic Campbell: I would say that it’s more about the kind of grant that you want to make. So if you want to make a general support grant, if you want to make a multi-year support grant, you start to think about equivalency determination because you’re stepping into that long-term relationship. Maybe you’re awarding grant funding for activities that, otherwise, you’d have to be carving out into a project. So maybe the organization engages in some lobbying, for example. Maybe they’re making grants to individuals, and you want to support those activities without being pulled into the foundation’s activities itself. So you can get out of ER and do ED that way. So it’s usually more about the kind of award and funding you want to provide.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: What are the chances that an ED will be challenged or interrogated? What kind of documentation should you keep too in the event that that happens?
Nic Campbell: So there’s a third-party source, at least one that does equivalency determinations, and it’s nice in the sense that there’s a sort of database of organizations that have EDs. So you can kind of go to that database now and say, “Does this organization have an ED?” If it does, you pay a reduced fee, and you can rely on that equivalency determination. If not, you can submit that organization to do the equivalency determination that way. So you don’t see a lot of challenges. I would say over the course of my career, I have not yet seen it challenged. You want to make sure, though, that you are collecting all of the information that we flagged. That database, that third party resource that I talked about, they understand all of these ED requirements. So the governing documents, the affidavits that you have to collect, the determination that you have to make. All of those things are documented and placed into that database, so you can rely on it. So I haven’t yet seen challenges to it. But if there is a challenge, you definitely want to make sure you have that information to say, “I made a good faith determination based on the information I had.”
Renee Karibi-Whyte: If there is a challenge, who would be the challenger? Would it be the IRS? Would it be – Who would be the organization?
Nic Campbell: I think it would be the IRS maybe in an audit. So if an audit comes up, or someone says, “We think –” And audits can be sort of launched with any reason or by any – Or be prompted by several reasons. So if someone just writes to the IRS and says, “We think they’re making improper grants,” they being the foundation, then the IRS could decide to initiate an examination or an audit and review the grants that were made internationally by that foundation.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Do you have the name of that third-party database? There’s a question about that.
Nic Campbell: Yes. It’s NGOsource.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Okay. Thanks. So we will include it in the slides that we send out. Now, I know we’re going to move into individuals. We have a question on the factors to consider for individual grantmaking. So we’re going to move right into that.
Nic Campbell: Yes. So why are we talking about grants to individuals? We’re really focused on cross border giving. Well, two reasons. The first is that individuals play a really critical role in the international landscape. So particularly when you’re getting into local context and in country, and you’re thinking about marginalized communities, there are a lot of community leaders that I think can play a really critical role in this space. So ignoring grants to individuals or the roles that individuals can play I think really does impact cross border grantmaking.
Nic Campbell: The second is even when you’re making a grant to an organization, you still have to think about, okay, is this actually a grant to individual, even though I’ve made a grant to the organization itself? I’ll talk through why. So let me just start by saying private foundations cannot make grants to individuals for travel study or similar purposes. When they talk about similar purposes, they’re talking about scholarships, fellowships, internships, right? Unless they receive pre-approval from the IRS, right? So unless you have that written pre-approval or that pre-approval from the IRS, you really cannot, as a foundation, make those grants.
Nic Campbell: There is an exception that says, “Look. If you don’t hear from us in 45 days of submission, you can sort of move forward until you hear from us officially, and you can act as though you can make grants to individuals.” So you really do need that pre-approval in order to make grants individuals as a private foundation. Public charities don’t have that same kind of restriction. So when we talk about grants to individuals, we’re not talking about service arrangements. We’re not talking about employees. We’re talking about grants for scholarships, fellowships, that kind of thing.
Nic Campbell: So when you make a grant to an organization, in the expenditure responsibility context, for example, and that organization says, “We’re now going to make scholarship awards. We’re going to issue a couple of fellowships,” that has to follow the grants to individual rules for private foundations. So you might say, “Well, wait a minute, Nic. Like what if the foundation just makes the grant to that organization, has no role in selecting those individuals, doesn’t do anything around that process, and that organization then makes it grants to individuals? Are we still in grant individual territory?” The answer is yes when you’re in expenditure responsibility.
Nic Campbell: So what does that mean? It means that if the private foundation itself cannot make those kinds of awards, you can’t then fund an organization to go off and make those awards in your stead, right? So when you’re in an expenditure responsibility situation, you do have to ask yourself, is the foundation able to make grants to individuals? If the answer is no, then the organization itself cannot then make the grants individual. If the foundation can, then you want to make sure that the organization is following the procedures laid out for the grant’s individual programs of the foundation. So you still have to ask lots of questions. How are you selecting folks? How are you making sure that they are actually compliant with the terms of the fellowship, those kinds of questions?
Nic Campbell: So then you might now be saying, “Wait a minute, Nic. Anytime I make a grant organization, I just have to ask these questions.” There are some exceptions to that. When you’re funding intermediary organizations because there’s a lot of foundations that do this, you can still get away from these grants to individuals characterization, right. So the first is if you’re making a grant to a public charity, you can actually play a limited role in the selection. You can give recommendations. You can even participate in the selection process, as long as the public charity itself is seen as leading the selection, leading the process, and the decision is the public charities. It will be seen as a grant to an organization and will not be transformed into any sort of grant individual. You have to make sure that the foundation this ability or things like that.
Nic Campbell: Now, you can start to see. Well, now I understand like if an organization that is not a US public charity, wants to make grants to individuals, maybe I don’t do ER, and I can consider whether or not they are a candidate for equivalency determination. Why? Because now you’re saying you’re just like a public charity. When you have that a US public charity equivalency, again, you can even play a limited role in the selection. You can participate in the way that you can’t. Or you can just do the same sort of grant where your hands off, not involved, and it’s not going to be seen as a grant to an individual. That’s one of the ways you can start to think about equivalency determination, exponential responsibility, and is it appropriate.
Nic Campbell: Similarly, when you’re engaged with governmental agencies, you can even have even more control within that process, and it will still be seen as a grant to organization. With other organizations, you want it to be made complete independent of the foundation itself.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: When you think about the level of control for government agencies, is there a 50% mark, like more control than the other organization? Can you kind of go into a little bit more about that?
Nic Campbell: As you probably can guess from the IRS, they’re not giving these bright line tests. From what I’ve seen over the years, you can actually – Let’s say you have a selection committee of seven. You could likely have four foundation representatives on that committee and still have it be seen as the grant being made to the governmental agency. Now, in practice, does that happen? Likely not. I think foundations tend to take that place of we still want to sit in a role of decision making, maybe alongside the governmental agency. But we don’t necessarily want to “control it,” right? So I’ve usually seen that over the years, but there’s no bright line test coming from the IRS.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: If you had that four person of seven people panel on the public charity, that would be too many.
Nic Campbell: That would be controlled. Another thing you want to think about is not only just the numbers but the veto rights, right? So let’s say you’re not sitting on the selection committee at all, but you still have the ability to veto a decision. That is a tremendous amount of control that you also want to think about, and it’s not permissible.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: There’s a lot of conversation right now about power dynamics between grantees and grantors. Sometimes, even if there is no explicit control, there’s a perception of control. How do you suggest that foundations overcome that when they’re in this position?
Nic Campbell: It’s a really good question, right? It’s something that comes up a lot. I’ve definitely had the question of, well, let’s say we’re not on the selection committee, and the founder of the foundation actually just wants to be in the room, sitting off to the side while the selection is being played, is occurring or taking place. To that, I always require like what is the purpose of that? If you were trusting your grantee to do the work, are they asking you to participate? If so, why? I’m just really trying to understand like why am I in the room? Why am I playing a part in this process? Is it actually furthering the charitable purpose of the grant? Is it getting us closer to our goal? Or is it me sort of stepping in and inappropriately exercising power within this dynamic?
Nic Campbell: I think those are the kinds of questions you have to ask yourself before you say, well, we’re just doing it because we’re partnering, right? I think you do have to ask yourself the question that – I always bring this up that, yes, there is the legal things that you can do. So legally, yes, you can take three spaces of that selection committee, for example, in the seven-person selection committee, but why? Like why are you doing it? I still think you have to ask those questions, like why do you want to do it.
Nic Campbell: Particularly, when you’re operating internationally, you do get into this space of optics, in particular. Making optics are very important. If you’re trying to give the control to the grantee and you say, “Look, we trust you. We want you to work the way you want to work,” why are you sitting on the selection committee, right? Just ask those questions. Not to say that you can’t, but think about, okay, well, we’re putting three people on because without the three, we couldn’t do A, B, and C. If you’re not able to point to those things concretely, then I don’t think you should be sitting on the selection committee, and that’s outside of the legal consideration.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Can you give an example of a structure for getting grant funds to individuals abroad?
Nic Campbell: Yeah. One, you can work with a public charity. So I’ll talk through a few. One, if you’re a foundation, you can work with an intermediary, right? So we just talked about having this public charity that plays a role, and maybe they’re the ones that then can engage in a selection of individuals and providing funding to individuals. You can recommend, right? You can say we would love it if these grants went to these individuals, but it’s completely up to you, public charity, who you decide to award these funds to.
Nic Campbell: Another is to – If you’re making grants individuals, and you have a real grants to individuals program sort of happening, resurfacing, you might want to think about do we just go to the IRS and get this pre-approval, because now you can make grants in the ER context. You can make grants directly if you have that capacity. So you can make grants in those ways. You can use an intermediary, or you can do it directly. I think if you are at the point where you are making a substantial amount of awards to individuals through intermediaries, think about your own capacity, of course.
Nic Campbell: But then also think about like is this a place where we should now go out and get our own pre approval from the IRS because what it does is it allows you to then step into this ER space with non-US public charities and make those kinds of awards, ensuring that the awards line up with the kind of approval that you’d receive from the IRS.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: So what happens if you end up altering your program? So once you receive approval from the IRS, how do you determine if any alterations that you make will make it differ significantly from those described in your original request?
Nic Campbell: When you go off and request this pre-approval, you’re going to describe a program. Sometimes, you do have a specific program in mind. But you’re going to describe a program that is broad enough to capture sort of permutations of variations on that program. But specific enough to clearly say this is what we’re proposing to do. So that’s the kind of application that we like to put forward for foundations when they’re going to the IRS.
Nic Campbell: Now, just move forward, programs evolve, right? We want them to. We want them to be reflective of the environment in which they’re operating. So if you want to change the program, again, you will have built in the flexibility initially to say, “We don’t necessarily need to go back to the IRS and get pre-approval.” If you’re doing a significant change, like you have now eliminated a selection committee when you said that this was really critical to the process, or you’re doing something that is really substantially changing the program itself, or it may be who you’re awarding funds to, that kind of thing, then you do have to go back to the IRS and receive your pre-approval and just forms for that. It’s a pretty straightforward process when you go back and you get that approval from the IRS.
Stef Wong: That concludes part one of this series. Next week, Nic will continue to share her insights about cross border grantmaking. Additionally, if you’re interested in partnering with a law firm that leverages a global network of experienced attorneys with decades of legal training and practical experience and focuses on social impact organizations to serve as an outsourced general counsel and thought partner, then schedule a discovery call with the Campbell Law Firm today.
Stef Wong: The Campbell Law Firm works with brave nonprofits, philanthropists, ultra high-net-worth individuals and movements, offering high-touch counsel to social impact entrepreneurs and organizations around the world. We would love to hear more about your brave mission to change the world.
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Nic Campbell: Thank you for listening to this episode of Nonprofit Build Up. To access the show notes, additional resources, and information on how you can work with us, please visit our website at buildupadvisory.com. We invite you to listen again next week as we share another episode about scaling impact by building infrastructure and capacity in the nonprofit sector. Keep building bravely.
Part Two
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Nic Campbell: You’re listening to the Nonprofit Build Up podcast, and I’m your host, Nic Campbell. I want to support movements that can interrupt cycles of injustice and inequity, and shift power towards vulnerable and marginalized communities. I’ve spent years working in and with nonprofits and philanthropies, and I know how important infrastructure is to outcomes. On this show, we’ll talk about how to build capacity to transform the way you and your organization work.
Stef Wong: Hi, everyone. It’s Stef, Build Up’s Executive Portfolio Liaison. This week on the Nonprofit Build Up, we are recasting part two of a two-part informative session led by Build Up’s CEO and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ (RPA) General Counsel, A. Nicole Campbell, and moderated by RPA’s Senior Vice President and Corporate Secretary, Renee Karibi-Whyte.
Stef Wong: This presentation was originally recorded as a webinar in April, 2022. The Campbell Law Firm serves as outsourced general counsel to brave nonprofits and philanthropies, and RPA is one of our brave clients. You can jump back to part one of the conversation to learn more about cross-border grantmaking, due diligence, and legal considerations for global grantmaking.
Stef Wong: But with that, let’s dive into the discussion where Nic provides an overview of the global giving landscape, reviews definitions and descriptions of expenditure responsibility and equivalency determination, which are concepts that arise frequently within cross-border grantmaking, and remind us about compliance considerations to keep in mind when making international grants.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: We’re going to talk a little bit more about, aside from individuals, how what you’re giving to makes a difference.
Nic Campbell: Yes. So as you can imagine, as we talk through, you have to ask these questions. Who are you giving to, right? Who’s actually receiving the funds? If you’re giving it to a US public charity, then you have a lot of options, right? This is why you will see foundation say, “We only made grant awards to US public charities.” Why? Because you can do general support. You can do project support. You have safe harbors for organizations that are engaged in lobbying, and you can still make a project support grant to them, same thing with general support. So there’s a lot of things that you can do in that context.
Nic Campbell: I don’t think that that’s the only way that you can engage in cross-border giving, nor should it be, because there’s a lot of other vehicles out there. Individuals, as we talked about, if you’re going to make a grant to an individual, you have to follow special rules, right? Get that pre-approval if you’re making it directly. You have to make sure that your selection process is objective and nondiscriminatory. So the IRS is making you say, “I, the foundation, award grants to individuals. I am not perpetuating some harm within this system, right? I am making sure that my selection process is objective and nondiscriminatory in goodness of the charitable purpose of the grant.”
Nic Campbell: When you’re making awards or providing awards to intermediaries like fiscal sponsors and fiscal agents, then you have to determine when you’re dealing with which, right? So fiscal sponsors need to have discretion over the funds. They need to have – Usually, you see the board having a vote over whether or not they can accept a project as a fiscally sponsored project or leadership. Somebody needs to approve that these funds can be deployed as proposed. So as a result, if you have a US public charity as a fiscal sponsor, you can work with that intermediary and make grants to individuals, make grants to other organizations, and still have that grant be treated as an organizational grant.
Nic Campbell: Fiscal agents are a little bit different. But sometimes, they play a role when you’re in the international space because sometimes you’re dealing with organizations or individuals that may not have bank accounts, right? So someone maybe on behalf of that group will say, “You can use our bank account. You can pay the funds into the bank account. Then we will transfer it over to the ultimate grantee.” Of course, in that situation, you want to make sure there’s protections written in that the fiscal agent will actually transfer the funds as promised. But that’s another way that you might say, “Look, this is how we have to get funds to these organizations and individuals in country.”
Nic Campbell: Then the last is what we’ve been talking through, a non-US public charity, right? Like how do you actually provide awards to organizations that are not US public charities? We’ve talked about equivalency determinations. We talked about expenditure responsibility. So you have to think about who you’re actually providing awards to because it has implications. That’s why we wanted to talk to this structure because before you can get into like, “Here’s what we want to do. Here’s how we want to give it,” know who you’re giving it to and understand like the legal structure in which it serves.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: We talked a little bit about designating funds for a particular purpose, and I know there’s something about earmarking that you wanted to cover.
Nic Campbell: Yes. This comes up. We talk about fiscal agent, right? But it’ll come up generally. We talked about it, again, when we talked about control with individuals and selection process. So earmarking is when you set aside funds to support specific activities. The first question should be, “Well, Nic, isn’t that grantmaking,” right? Like when we make project support grants, aren’t we earmarking? Yes, you are. The question, though, is what are you earmarking it for?
Nic Campbell: That is what your diligence should be getting at. This is why you’re asking those questions in your application. This is why you’re getting reporting, to ensure that air marking is done appropriately. So we have grant agreements that talk about safeguards. You might even have language that says, “We are not earmarking these funds for any other purpose than the purpose intended.” You’ll see foundations have that kind of language, and this is why. What are the implications? Are we granting, right?
Nic Campbell: You talked about like, look, if you’re expenditure responsibility and you’re sort of like bypassing this US public charity, for example, if you’re making a grant to a US public charity, earmarking for the ultimate grantee that’s not a US public charity, you’re not pushing yourself into expenditure responsibility, when you should have been staying in that grant to a US public charity, right? If you’re earmarking improper activities, you could be earmarking funds for lobbying, which private foundations cannot support, and similarly for political campaign activity.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: We went into fiscal sponsor versus fiscal agent, where there’s an additional detail you wanted to discuss here as well.
Nic Campbell: Yes. So I will just flag that it is very important to understand the difference between fiscal sponsors and fiscal agents. As we talked about, fiscal sponsors have the control. They have the discretion to use the funds in a particular way, and fiscal agents do not. Why does that matter? Because it’s earmarking. So if you’re using an organization that claims to be a fiscal sponsor. But you, the foundation, do not review a fiscal sponsorship agreement between the fiscal sponsor and the project that basically says, “We have full control and discretion to use the funds as intended.” You could be in an earmarking situation. You might be giving to a fiscal agent without knowing it, right?
Nic Campbell: You want to make sure that you know when you’re engaging with a fiscal sponsor or a fiscal agent, and the fiscal sponsor has the control and discretion. So review the fiscal sponsorship agreement as a private foundation. It’s a private foundation. If you were making a grant to an organization or some project that has a fiscal sponsor at a minimum, review the fiscal sponsorship agreement between the fiscal sponsor and that project because you want to make sure that it’s supportive of the fact that fiscal sponsor has discretion and control.
Nic Campbell: Usually, we see fiscal sponsors as US public charities because, again, private foundations making that grant to the US public charities makes it a lot more straightforward for the grantmaking, even if the grant funds are then further deployed. On the fiscal agent side, again, this is usually seen when you want someone to provide a bank account. This is earmarking, right? So you are essentially saying, “I am giving a grant to this non-US public charity. I am just using this fiscal agent because that’s where the funds will be paid into.” So this grant, you need to think about expenditure responsibility in that example because you have earmarked the grant to the ultimate organization.
Nic Campbell: The fiscal agent, if they do this a lot, they’re not going to sign on to any sort of agreement that looks like a grant agreement with the fiscal sponsor, between the foundation and the fiscal sponsor. They’re going to say, “The only thing I’m promising is that I will take the funds from you, and I will send the funds to the intended grantee.” So you have to think about expenditure responsibility here, and the one thing I’ll pull out is that I would strongly encourage using a grant agreement, regardless of the amount. So if it’s $500, and you usually make grants of a million or 500,000 and up, use a grant agreement because it very clearly spells out the responsibilities and obligations of each of the parties.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Thanks, Nic. Let’s turn to sanctions and how to prevent corruption.
Nic Campbell: Yes. It’s a very interesting topic, right? What I want to do here is just highlight it in that pointing out that as a US person, foundations, public charities, we have to think about sanctions, right? We have to think about how our funds are being used, and are we in compliance with the various sanctions, rules, and laws that are within the United States.
Nic Campbell: So you’ll see here we pull out a quote. Essentially, don’t think that because you’re doing good work, you are pulled out of this conversation, right? So you will see that bolded language that says we have a responsibility to do all we can to shut down the funding channels of terrorism, which is are you ensuring that your charitable funds are not being used to further any sort of terrorist activities as defined under US law.
Nic Campbell: There are a couple that we wanted to just highlight because they tend to come up a lot. So the first is, you’ve probably heard of it, OFAC, right? This is coming out of the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Essentially, it’s when the US Treasury Department has put in regulations to ensure that organizations, US persons, do not do business with terrorist organizations or individuals. You’ve heard of this OFAC as specially designated nationals list. If you’re on that list, you cannot engage in those kinds of activities with individuals on that list.
Nic Campbell: There are also countries that OFAC has sort of determined to be sanction countries or countries that are aren’t sanctioned, but they might be in a region where there are a lot of specially designated nationals. So you have to take certain precautions. It affects all US persons. One thing I’ll say here is if you are a US person with affiliates or branches in other countries, don’t think that just because, well, they’re a separate entity under that particular country and so they’re not a US person, they’re not subject to OFAC.
Nic Campbell: OFAC also considers are you controlled by a US person, such that you are a US person for purposes of OFAC. That then impacts the kinds of questions you ask in diligence, applications, those kinds of things. So you want to be clear on who is actually subject to OFAC, and is my diligence getting at the kinds of things that I want to make sure that are not triggering OFAC. The last piece I’ll say about OFAC is we want to make sure that we are taking a tailored approach to OFAC. So sometimes, you will see language in grant agreements that are a page – I mean, sometimes a page long of OFAC provisions, of all the things that a grantee has to comply with. People just kind of move on and sign the agreement.
Nic Campbell: But the question is what is sitting in your diligence? What are the questions that you’re asking to actually make sure that this grant is not triggering any sort of OFAC penalties or situations? Ask questions during the application process and make sure that the reporting, you’re monitoring that as well. So it’s not just you put it into the grant agreement and forget about it, but you have to make sure that you are asking the right questions as well.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: The FCPA, of course, has some sway here as well.
Nic Campbell: Yes. So the other piece that we wanted to talk about is the FCPA, and this is when you pay or offer something of value with corrupt intent to a foreign government official or political party official, right? So you’re trying to do that so that you can maybe get a license, get a permit, get some improper advantage, right? This is language taken out of the statute.
Nic Campbell: One, it applies to us persons, nonprofit organizations as well. Think about agents that you might be using. So if you’re dealing with intermediaries outside of the United States, think about their actions because you can be held liable under FCPA for those actions, and other anti-bribery laws apply in other jurisdictions, not just FCPA, right? So as you step into other countries, as we talked about at the top of this, you have to think about the rules or regulations, the laws that are also in that country as well.
Nic Campbell: This is just FCPA to say that, and sometimes it’s not just always, “Hey, if I give you $50, will you do ABC.” It could be inviting a government official to an event that you’re having, a private event that you’re having. Thinking about will that trigger – That invitation, will that trigger FCPA? Sometimes, you do have to have those conversations. So whenever you have a government official involved, raise your hand and say, “Okay, is this a situation that might have implications under FCPA?”
Nic Campbell: One of the things we wanted to point out here is how do you work in conflict and post-conflict settings? I think in 2022, this conversation is about being immediately post-conflict. Are you not immediately post-conflict? Or are you in conflict? Because at this point, there aren’t many countries, I can say, that they are not post-conflict, right? So these are more programmatic ways of how you approach it, right? Do your research. Be prepared to take risks. Understand the local context, Support the folks on the ground. You will see that all of these tips, the reason we call this out here is that you cannot have a conversation about cross-border grantmaking, particularly from the legal perspective, if you are not considering the programmatic perspective as well.
Nic Campbell: These things have to work together so that you can say this is how we approach cross-border grantmaking, and all of the pieces that you’re seeing here from a programmatic perspective also apply in the legal context as well. So if you’re working with your attorneys, they’re going to ask you questions, right? Like have you ever been in this country before? Who have you spoken to? Are you aware of any local laws that might have implications? They’re going to ask these questions of local counsel, if they’re engaging them, of you, your partners, if you’ve worked there before.
Nic Campbell: Just another reminder that we have to make sure that we’re not separating these conversations and having programmatic conversations on the one hand, and then saying, “Okay, we’re done here. Let’s go talk to legal. We’re done here. Let’s go talk to the compliance team.”
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Okay. Now, we get to move into some hypotheticals.
Nic Campbell: With all of what we’ve talked about now, you should have the tools to step into these hypos. So the first is foundation makes a grant to World Alive. It’s a non-US nonprofit organization, working in public health throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. World Alive’s proposal indicated World Alive would like to make the following grants. One to two individuals for a public health fellowship to a local partner organization working on groundbreaking research, so we’ve got some free granting there, and to fund public health projects in Zimbabwe.
Nic Campbell: So you have a poll question that’s coming up, and the question is should foundation make the grant to World Alive? Yes, using ER. Yes, using ED. No, the grantee wants to fund two fellowships. Or, no, the grantee wants to fund work in Zimbabwe.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Let’s see what kind of answers we have.
Nic Campbell: Okay. So I’m seeing about 56% saying yes using ER, 19% saying yes using ED, a few folks saying, “No, the grantee wants to fund two fellowships.” No one said no because of the work in Zimbabwe. So how did we come out? These are all actual examples taken from work that’s been done over the years. So here, you could make an ER grant to World Alive. But let’s think about what the funds will be used for. We’ve got public health fellowships, and we’ve got grants to individuals. So the question is can this foundation actually make grants to individuals.
Nic Campbell: You have re-granting, again, to a local partner organization that’s working on groundbreaking research. So you’re now stepping into another level of ER with that second grant. Another question is can this local partner organization actually comply with ER requirements, and then to fund public health projects in Zimbabwe? Now, to sort of raise a hand around OFAC and no one selected that. Zimbabwe has a flag, I would say, from OFAC, but it’s not currently on the list.
Nic Campbell: So the way that we have made the grant is through equivalency determination, right? Saying that World Alive as a non-US nonprofit organization was actually eligible for an ED. As a result, when you make that EDI, you could provide general support, grant to that organization. Then they will be able to provide these other grants that are listed without the additional ER monitoring.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Great. Let’s move on to the second hypothetical.
Nic Campbell: Okay. The second is foundation makes a grant to Better World. It’s a US public charity focusing on criminal justice reform, specifically the school to prison pipeline throughout the global south. This grant includes the foundation working with Better World to make a project support grant to ABC Learn, a school in Belize. The foundation controlled the selection process there. The foundation is also working with Better World to support reform efforts in Cuba. Foundation’s diligence focuses on Better World’s efforts to ensure programmatic success.
Nic Campbell: So the question is – Two questions here. The first is does the foundation’s grant to Better World require the foundation to exercise ER? No, foundation made a grant to Better World, and it’s a US public charity, so ER required. No, because there was a selection process for ABC Learn. Yes, the work will be done throughout the global south. As a result, you need ER. Or, yes, the foundation earmarked the grant to ABC Learn. The second question is about the diligence. The question is, was foundation’s diligence comprehensive based on what we see here?
Nic Campbell: We have a majority of folks saying no. The foundation made a grant a better world. It’s a US public charity, so no ER. Just one person that’s still saying, no, there was a selection process for ABC Learn. So that’s why we don’t need ER. Yes, because the work is going to be done throughout the global south. A few folks saying, yes, the foundation earmarked the grant to ABC Learn. All right, so we’ll take that question first.
Nic Campbell: Here, yes, Better World is a US public charity. Ordinarily, we would not have to exercise ER because we’re making that grant. But if you look in that first bullet, we said that the foundation controlled the selection process for ABC Learn, right? So that grant that was going to ABC Learn, the foundation came in, controlled the selection process, and essentially earmarked that grant to ABC Learn. Because ABC Learn is not a US public charity, we’re now in expenditure responsibility because the foundation has earmarked the grant to ABC Learn.
Nic Campbell: Was the foundation’s diligence comprehensive? We have a sort of mix of yes, no, and I don’t know. All right, the majority of folks is saying no. I would agree with the no and say when we’ve seen that second bullet, that the foundation is doing work to support reform efforts in Cuba, and that their diligence focused on Better World’s efforts to ensure programmatic success. Are we also thinking about diligence in terms of what is happening on the ground in Cuba? What about OFAC? Cuba has been on the list, off the list. Do they need a license?
Nic Campbell: There’s a lot of questions that would come up in that context. So let’s say at this point no because the diligence only focused on programmatic success.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Okay. That brings us to the last hypothetical for today.
Nic Campbell: Okay, hypo three. Foundation seeks to make a grant to TeachersFirst to provide mentoring and school-based support to new teachers in rural districts in Botswana. Although this grant is a third grant foundation has made, and it is confident that TeachersFirst energetic leadership can deliver, foundation has continued concerns about the overall strength of the organization. So the question here is should foundation make the project support grant to TeachersFirst to support new teachers?
Nic Campbell: Currently, that’s the kind of grant that it wants to make, this project support grant to support the teachers. Yes, foundation is confident TeachersFirst leadership can deliver. No, foundation will be making an expenditure responsibility grant. Yes, foundation has considered organizational impact and capacity building. No, foundation should also consider organizational impact and capacity building.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: I think we have a lot of people who are unsure of answers. So even if you’re not confident in your answer, go ahead and guess, and let’s pull up the results.
Nic Campbell: I think everyone can see the polling results, and I’ll just look for the majority. So the majority of folks said, no, foundation should also consider organizational impact and capacity building. I would agree with that. I think here, what we’re trying to talk about is at what point do we stop making these project support grants to an organization and think holistically about how we invest in the organization to consider as capacity building and its organizational impact as well.
Nic Campbell: There’s ways, as we’ve talked about, that we can do now, if we want to make this kind of general support grant to TeachersFirst. So we can think about equivalency determination, for example. There’s a lot of ways that we can do it if we are in the international context.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Great. So with time getting a little short, let’s wrap it up with some best practices.
Nic Campbell: Yes. So we just wanted to highlight some points here from what we’ve been talking through. The first is conduct only enough diligence to give you confidence that the grantee can perform the charitable purposes of the grant. You might say, “Well, Nic, yes, of course, that’s what we want to do. That’s what we aim to do.” But that means looking at every question that you were asking as part of your application process to ensure that each question leads you to say, okay, yes, this means that the grantee can perform under the grant itself, right? If you have questions that are just being asked, just because they’ve historically been asked, you might want to think about, okay, do we actually need those questions?
Nic Campbell: The next is to consider to whom the grant has been made, for what purpose, and where the grant funds will be used to ensure that your grant award serves as a resource to the grantee. So we talked about who’s actually receiving the grant that has implications around structure. Why is the grant being provided? Where will the grant funds be used? All of those things then inform how will I, the foundation team, serves as a resource to the grantee? So, yes, I’m providing funding, but how am I actually providing a resource and a support to the grantee organization?
Nic Campbell: Ensure that your diligence procedures are not antithetical to your organization’s values. So you might be saying out loud, “We are inclusive. We are risk takers. We are innovative.” When you look at your diligence procedures, they are clunky. They’re asking questions that are not needed. Or they’re making you exclude a large group of folks from your grantmaking process. So make sure that your diligence procedures are supportive of your organizational values.
Nic Campbell: The next is to examine the role of intermediary organizations structurally, programmatically, and within the local context. We’ve talked about this. Make sure that you know when you need a fiscal sponsor, a fiscal agent. When you are working with a fiscal sponsor, that they understand the local context and can appreciate it and can engage with partners on the ground.
Nic Campbell: Underscore flexibility, equity, impact, and partnership throughout your grantmaking, domestically and internationally. This is the way you should be showing up. Every grant award that you make should be trying to get at these things. That happens, yes, within the United States, but it doesn’t disappear because now you’re engaged in cross-border giving. It should still be present then too.
Nic Campbell: Engage with local council and partners before funding in a new geography. If you are stepping into a new country and you’re working in a new space, yes, you talk to folks on the ground, partners to make sure like you understand what’s happening. But you also want to understand what’s happening legally, what’s happening within the governments. So engaging local counsel as you start to explore within that region is also critically important.
Nic Campbell: Understand the defined risk within your organization and grantmaking. If we start to talk about taking risks or things are too risky, we need to understand and have a shared definition of risks throughout the organization. That impacts your grantmaking as well. Then finally, remain equity-centered. At the end of the day, we want to talk through these legal structures because that gives you the tools and the vehicles to do your work. But it should all be centered around equity and how are we making sure that those who have been historically excluded from the conversation are now able to participate and problem solve for their own communities.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Thanks for those practical tips, Nic. We have a couple of questions that I want to get to in a little bit of time left. There was some question around using DAFs for cross-border grantmaking. Are there special concerns or considerations for DAFs?
Nic Campbell: With DAFs, it’s a really good question because DAFs then take on – They have the same expenditure responsibility requirements that probably foundations have. So donor- advised funds, DAFs, they are public charities. But when we start to get into grants to non-US public charities, they have the same expenditure responsibility requirements that we talked through for private foundations. So what you’ll see with DAFs is it does vary from DAF to DAF.
Nic Campbell: Exponential responsibility, as we know, you can still make these grants. But it requires some more diligence, reporting, things like that. So many DAFs will not engage in international grantmaking. So you want to make sure that the DAFs that you’re engaging with or working with will actually do that kind of grantmaking, but they’re not prohibited from engaging in grantmaking.
Renee Karibi-Whyte: Okay. The last question that I have right now is about the reporting requirements based on fiscal years and grant period timing.
Nic Campbell: It’s a really good question. I think practically what happens is foundations tend to use it based on their own calendar year or fiscal year. The regulations talk about the fiscal year of the grantee themselves. But usually, what you’ll see is calendar year for the most part and having reports within like three months of the close of the calendar year before it. But you do have some flexibility there.
Nic Campbell: Essentially, what you want is that when you, the foundation, are reporting on the grant’s activities, you are in a position to say, okay, based on the grant period and the grant term, I can honestly say that there has been no diversion, or here’s how much money has been spent. So you want that information.
Stef Wong: As we wrap up, if you’re interested in partnering with a law firm that leverages a global network of experienced attorneys with decades of legal training and practical experience, and focuses on social impact organizations to serve as an outsourced general counsel and thought partner, then schedule a discovery call with the Campbell Law Firm today.
Stef Wong: The Campbell Law Firm works with brave nonprofits, philanthropists, ultra high-net-worth individuals and movements, offering high-touch counsel to social impact entrepreneurs and organizations around the world. We would love to hear more about your brave mission to change the world.
Stef Wong: That completes this two-part series on cross-border grantmaking, due diligence, and legal considerations for global grantmaking.
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Nic Campbell: Thank you for listening to this episode of Nonprofit Build Up. To access the show notes, additional resources, and information on how you can work with us, please visit our website at buildupadvisory.com. We invite you to listen again next week, as we share another episode about scaling impact by building infrastructure and capacity in the nonprofit sector. Keep building bravely.
Andrew Schulman is the founder and a principal at Schulman Consulting: America’s only consulting and advisory firm exclusively focused on the fiscal sponsorship sector, guiding dozens of clients – fiscal sponsors and sponsored projects, large and small – in overcoming a variety of challenges.