Our attorneys, in addition to their in-depth knowledge of nonprofit law in general, possess an expertise in one or more specific practice area—such as tax law, nonprofit fundraising and compliance laws, joint ventures, social enterprises and executive compensation. They often work together to provide clients with comprehensive, customized, innovative solutions for all their legal needs.

As the following Success Stories demonstrate, the resolution of one legal matter often involves various areas of expertise.

• By successfully resolving compliance and governance issues for a large government-funded New York City cultural facility that was facing government scrutiny, we helped them expand their programs and merge successfully with a sister nonprofit organization. Read more… 
  
  
• Worked with a nonprofit to turn their proprietary software into a successful, for-profit social enterprise company and fulfill their mission to increase healthcare access to low-income families. Read more… 
  
  
• Helped a national donor management software firm avoid regulatory compliance sanctions from several states when they were mistakenly identified as a professional fundraiser by one of their customers. Read more… 
  
  
• Working with the New York Secretary of State, we helped a nonprofit amend and restate their 19th century charter, removing outdated provisions affecting their governance and structure that could have limited their ability to carry out their mission. Read more… 
  
  
• Helped with the dissolution of a financially insolvent nonprofit and the transfer of multi-million-dollar government contracts to other entities to maintain continuity for the organizations they once served.
  Read more… 

Success Story #1

Practice Areas: Governance & Structure, Mergers

Challenge: A large government-funded cultural facility in New York City was being investigated for compliance problems caused by a previous board and CEO.

Solution: Our first step was to intervene with the investigators to clarify and narrow the scope of the inquiry. We then worked closely with the organization’s leadership and auditors to provide necessary information to the investigators, resulting in a favorable finding and restoration of the facility’s credibility

To ensure these problems would not recur, we helped the organization develop policies and procedures on critical governance issues such as conflicts of interest, whistle-blowing, nepotism, and employment practices. At the client’s request, we conducted training for the board and staff on how to comply with the law and avoid future problems. We kept regulators informed throughout the process.

Result: Once confidence in the facility was restored, we represented them in discussions that led to expansion of their programs and a merger with a sister nonprofit organization. This merger stabilized the facility financially and brought them much favorable publicity.

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Success Story #2

Practice Areas: Social Enterprise, Intellectual Property, Tax, Commercial Transactions

Challenge: A nonprofit that advocates access to universal healthcare wanted to turn their proprietary software into a mission-driven, profit-making business.

The organization had developed a sophisticated, web-based tool that quickly determines eligibility for state, local and federal financial assistance. The software had the potential to be very profitable as is it could be used by hospitals and medical providers to capture millions of dollars in lost reimbursements as well as by government agencies to reduce overhead by pre-screening applicants and enrolling them quickly.

Solution: Our challenge was to create a separate for-profit entity while protecting the organization’s intellectual property and nonprofit status. Our first task was to analyze the organization’s current resources, including the status of startup funding from board members and foundations. We then prepared a plan to spin off the software component into a separate company, restructure its finances, delineate the rights to the software and other assets,  as well as the respective obligations, all while maintaining the parent organization’s tax -exempt status.

Result: A new mission-driven, for-profit software company was launched in 2006. The business was so successful that it was later sold to a larger company in the health care industry. As part of the sale, the parent organization retained the right to make the software available to community groups and other non-commercial markets.

Most importantly, the organization generated resources that it used to help fulfill its mission of increasing access to medical care for people who could not otherwise afford it.

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Success Story #3

Practice Areas: Nonprofit Fundraising Registration & Compliance, and Cause-Related Marketing

Challenge: A nonprofit organization mistakenly listed its donor management software vendor as a professional fundraiser on their state charitable registration form. As a result, this California-based software firm faced sanctions from several states for not being registered as a professional fundraiser.

Solution: After carefully reviewing the scope of the company’s services, we determined that the firm was not acting as a professional fundraiser. We successfully explained our findings to various state regulatory agencies, applying to each state’s respective solicitation laws and the Charleston Principles (guidelines developed by state regulators on charitable solicitations via the Internet).

Prospectively, We also advised the company on a corporate restructuring to segregate all of its fundraising consulting services from its general software services in order to limit the scope of regulatory jurisdiction over the firm’s activities as a whole.

Result: All state sanctions against the company were dropped and their software products continue to be used extensively by organizations nationwide.

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Success Story #4

Practice Areas: Nonprofit Governance & Structure

Challenge: A nonprofit organization’s charter, dating back to the 19th century, contained several outdated provisions and restrictions that could potentially limit its ability to continue all of its current activities.

Solution: Our first step was to help the client’s board understand how the existing charter did not reflect their current mission, did not comply with current state law, and could potentially limit the organization’s ability to carry out its mission. We worked closely with a senior attorney in the New York State Division of Corporations to amend and restate the client’s original charter  as a Certificate of Incorporation suited to the needs of a 21st century nonprofit organization.

Result: The nonprofit is free of the potential limitations caused by its outdated charter and can continue to carry out its mission without unnecessary restrictions.

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Success Story #5

Practice Areas: Mergers & Dissolution

Challenge: A large nonprofit with multi-million dollar government service contracts had become financially insolvent and was unable to sustain its programs to provide aid to the needy.

Solution: We worked with the client to wind down its affairs, shut down its operations, deal with vendors and unions, and finally dissolve the organization. We helped transfer all of its programs to other nonprofit organizations to ensure continuity of service for all the organization’s charitable beneficiaries.

Result: The nonprofit’s dissolution was conducted in a timely, cohesive manner, with minimal disruption to the organizations and beneficiaries they had formerly served.

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