"Now I will show you heaven," G-d said, and they went into an identical room with an identical pot of stew and people with identical spoons, but they were all well-nourished and happy. "It's simple," G-d said. "They like to feed one another."

♦ Medieval Jewish story

An Introduction to Tzedakah

By Ira Kaminow, President, Tzedakah, Inc.

Tzedakah is a Hebrew word often translated as charity or philanthropy, but literally means "justice."

Tzedakah is an all-volunteer 501 (c)(3) dedicated to enhancing the spiritual and economic effectiveness of philanthropy, as well as the amount of philanthropy, in the Jewish community. To that end, our website has information regarding Jewish traditional values relating to philanthropy. It also contains a searchable database of profiles of about 70 philanthropies, similar to profiles prepared by PAS and AIP (although we do not grade organizations), and opportunities for online giving. Our site attracts visits at the rate of about 80,000-90,000 a year. Last year, we received donor-advised contributions of about $30,000 on behalf of listed organizations.

Our most recent effort has been publication of Be Pure Before God and Israel: Principles of Ethics, Governance, and Accountability for Jewish Philanthropies in the United States.

It features two original documents. The first is Standards of Practice of for Jewish Philanthropies in the United States.

How are our standards different from all other standards? To my knowledge this is the first set of philanthropic standards that explicitly combines consideration of both Jewish and US law and practice. Here are two specific examples of where the Jewish spin on things come into play

1. Jewish philanthropies often rely on endorsements from prominent individuals (typically major rabbis) for legitmacy, our standards have a section on endorsements
2. Jewish tradition recognizes that fundraising costs are a necessary part of philanthropy and that expenditures on fundraising are for the benefit of the needy. Without spending on fundraising much less would be collected to meet the needs of the poor. Therefore, unlike other standards, ours explicitly introduce the notion of a floor on fundraising expenses as well as a ceiling.

   Our standards follow Jewish tradition by explicitly calling for a balance between the needs of the mission for adequate funding (a very low fundraising ratio may be evidence of an insufficently aggressive fundraising strategy) on the one hand, and the intention and expectation of the donor that most donated funds go for program, on the other.

The standards themselves are supplemented by a selection of supporting quotations drawn from various Jewish sources.

The second original work is Tzedakah and Tzedek: Halachic & Ethical Financial Requirements Pertaining to Charitable Organizations, prepared by Rabbi Daniel Feldman under the auspices of the Orthodox Caucus. It is a heavily-footnoted scholarly summary of Jewish law and tradition relating to certain ethical aspects of philanthropy.

Please visit our site (http://www.just-tzedakah.org/) and share with us any comments.

Index of Community Indicators

United Way of America has created an interesting "State of Caring" index that charts several indicators of community health and generosity. It can be accessed online at http://www.unitedway.org/stateofcaring/index.cfm There is a separate State of Caring index for each of the 50 states as well. The measurements are carried back for several years, allowing assessment of changes for good or ill over time.

IRS Requests for Comment and New Materials

Electronic Filing of Exempt Organization Returns The IRS requests comments from exempt organizations and interested stakeholders on factors to be considered in developing an electronic filing system for Form 990 series returns. Comments should be submitted on or before April 18, 2002. For additional information, please see Announcement 2002-27, 2002-11 I.R.B. 629.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/a-02-27.pdf

Plain-Language Publications and Voluntary Compliance Programs The Exempt Organizations function of the Tax Exempt/Government Entities (TE/GE) Division invites people to submit comments and suggestions on programs for outreach to, and education of, exempt organizations. Ideas on design and content of the Internet web page and plain language publications are particularly encouraged. For additional information, please see Announcement 2001-14.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-irbs/irb01-07.pdf (The announcement is on page 648 of this long publication; the only way I could find to get there is to scroll through. Members of the public may submit suggestions or drafts by electronic message, by mail, or by hand delivery. Electronic messages may be addressed to *TE/GE-Exempt@irs.gov. Mail may be addressed to Ms. Virginia Richardson, T:EO, 1111 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20224, Attn: 2001-14.)

Advanced Text of Publication 1771 - Charitable Contributions - Substantiation and Disclosure Requirements This publication explains the federal law for organizations such as charities and churches who receive tax-deductible charitable contributions and for taxpayers who make contributions. It includes rules for electronic acknowledgement of gifts.

http://www.irs.gov/exempt/display/0,,i1%3D3%26genericId%3D15048,00.html

EO Tax Kit A good collection of forms, instructions, and usefule publications for nonprofits ("exempt organizations" in IRS-speak) is available from the redesigned IRS website at http://www.irs.gov/exempt/display/0,,i1%3D3%26genericId%ID6871,00.html

And speaking of the redesign of the IRS website, it has led to a lot of broken links at The Internet Nonprofit Center. If you can help identify the proper new URL for one of the resources mentioned in the FAQ, please send it (along with the full address for the page where the problem occurs) to editor@nonprofits.org. We'll try to get these fixed as fast as we can. Your help is appreciated.

NCCS and the 990

On the theme of collecting ideas and opinions about the 990, the National Center for Charitable Statistics is conducting a survey and has issued this invitation: If you are a nonprofit CFO or Treasurer, we invite you take this survey, and share your point of view. It can be found either at http://www.form990.org/survey.htm, or by scrolling down to the bottom of the first page of GuideStar's March feature article "Filing Forms 990 Becomes A Reality" at http://www.guidestar.org/news/features/e_filing01.stm

And further on this theme, Zina Poletz at NCCS has circulated this notice:

I would like to invite everyone who has ever expressed (or quietly experienced) any dissatisfaction with Form 990 to check out an issues paper, prepared by Wilson (Bill) Levis to jumpstart discussion for the annual NASCO-IRS meeting, which is hosted each year by the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute. It is an Adobe Acrobat document, available for download at http://www.qual990.org/issues.htm.

Finally, Linda Lampkin, Manager of NCCS, invites help with their "Quality 990" website: I you to look at the NCCS web site (www.qual990.org) and forward any suggestions and materials (electronically, please) that you think would be useful to add -- we are looking for guides, checklists, papers, etc, that will help nonprofits complete their 990s accurately and improve the quality of reporting. The focus is on practical advice and tools that could be used by local groups who are forming to work on these issues.

We are also collecting ideas for clarification of instructions and format and content changes for the form itself and welcome your input.

The Unified Registration Statement (URS) of the Multi-State Filer Project (hosted here at the Internet Nonprofit Center) has been updated. Organizations that are subject to the charitable solicitations regulations of more than one state may find it convenient to use the URS; the website offers a good deal of information about the general topic of the registration and reporting requirements that apply to charitable solicitations across the country.

Thank you for your interest,

Putnam Barber
Editor
The Internet Nonprofit Center
A project of The Internet Nonprofit Center :: http://www.tess.org
Seattle, WA USA