National Director of Education

By Rosalie Courage
Director of Education
   

Does Your Club want to set up a Foundation?
Many of our clubs choose to create a Foundation or charitable corporation to ensure that they are able to issue tax receipts etc.  In essence this is for all intents and purposes a separate legal entity from the club that would have fostered its creation, however, they can still work quite well and have for many of our clubs.

Creating a separate legal entity brings with it responsibilities that usually those clubs do not have and the members of the new foundation must ensure that they are complying with charitable tax law and legal obligations.  There are also clubs who have found that with non-compliance they will lose their charitable tax status and while it is possible to regain it, it takes a fair amount of work.

If your club is considering setting up a Foundation or separate charitable organization, then it would be prudent to sit with the clubs lawyer and accountant to ensure that you fully understand the requirements.

In the Primer for Directors of Not-For Profit Corporations, published by Industry Canada, 2002 by Jane Burke Robertson, Barrister and Solicitor, the following questions should be asked with regard to Foundations.

Questions for prospective directors to ask the organization:

1. Does the board of directors meet regularly?  How often does it meet?

2. What notice and preparation (e.g. agenda, reports etc) does the corporation give the directors in advance of board meetings?

3. Does the corporation have written policies such as conflict of interest policy and an investment policy?

4. Does the corporation maintain the proper books of account, records and minutes of meetings?

5. Does the corporation provide board members with on-going operational and program information?

6. How does the Board monitor and supervise the chief staff person?  Does it do an annual performance appraisal of this person?

Questions for Directors to ask themselves:

1. Do I understand the duties of a director of a not-for-profile corporation?

2. Do I attend board meetings regularly?  Do I prepare adequately for them?  Do I read materials and consider them carefully?

3. Do I exercise independent judgment when voting on charitable matters?

4. If I am serving on the Board of a charitable corporation, do I understand the specific fiduciary responsibilities that I have?

5. Am I alert to any potential conflicts of interest or appearance of personal gain?

6. If I sit on the board owing to my affiliation with a stakeholder group, do I understand that my affiliation with that group cannot determine my vote on any board decision?  Am I prepared to declare a conflict of interest, and in some cases resign, if I am unable to reconcile my role with the stakeholder group and my position as director?

7. Have I read and do I understand the corporation’s policies on matters such as investment and conflict of interest?

These are all great examples of questions that we should ask if we sit on charitable boards or Boards that have charitable tax status.

Convention Education Sessions—here is your chance!

Would your Club like to have input into the educational sessions at the National Convention in Saskatoon?  Now is your chance!

I am very interested in those educational topics that you feel would be most beneficial to your club.

E-mail Rosalie Courage, National Director of Education, at rcourage@rbrdev.com with your ideas by April 1, 2005.

I look forward to hearing from you...
Rosalie