Fundraising
(j) Commercial Coventurer
(k) Administrative Agency
§ 3.5 Exemptions (a) Churches (b) Other Religious Organizations (c) Educational Institutions (d) Libraries (e) Museums (f) Health Care Institutions (g) Other Health Care Provider Organizations (h) Membership Organizations (i) Small Solicitations (j) Solicitations for Specified Individuals (k) Political Organizations (l) Veterans’ Organizations (m) Named Organizations (n) Other Categories of Exempted Organizations
§ 3.6 Regulation of Professional Fundraisers
§ 3.7 Regulation of Professional Solicitors
§ 3.8 Regulation of Commercial Coventurers
§ 3.9 Limitations on Fundraising Costs
§ 3.10 Availability of Records
§ 3.12 Registered Agent Requirements
§ 3.14 Regulatory Prohibitions
§ 3.15 Disclosure Statements and Legends
§ 3.17 Solicitation Notice Requirements
§ 3.18 Fiduciary Relationships
§ 3.19 Powers of Attorney General
§ 3.20 Miscellaneous Provisions
§ 3.24 Prospect of Law Changes
Chapter 3 summarizes the states' charitable solicitation acts. The chapter explains how fundraising for charitable purposes in the United States is a heavily regulated activity. This regulation comes in many forms and is manifested at the federal, state, and local levels. Nearly all the states regulate charitable fundraising—although the extent and intensity of enforcement vary greatly—and do so principally by means of statutes termed charitable solicitation acts.
These laws are often intricate. In addition to their complexity, there is a considerable absence of uniformity, although the states are making some progress toward uniform reporting. This combination of intricacy and nonconformity makes this a body of law with which it is difficult to comply, particularly in the case of a charitable organization that has a multistate fundraising program—a problem aggravated by a disparity in regulations, rules, and forms. There are, nonetheless, some relatively common features of these laws.
§ 3.1 SUMMARY
About 47 states have a form of statutory regulation of charitable fundraising occurring within their jurisdiction. More than 30 states have adopted what may be termed comprehensive charitable solicitation acts. The remaining states (including the District of Columbia) have elected to regulate fundraising for charitable purposes by means of differing approaches.
The various state charitable solicitation acts are, to substantially understate the situation, diverse. The content of these laws is so disparate that any implication that it is possible to neatly generalize about their assorted terms, requirements, limitations, exceptions, and prohibitions would be misleading. Of even greater variance are the requirements imposed by the many regulations, rules, and forms promulgated to accompany and amplify the state statutes. Nonetheless, some basic commonalities can be found in the comprehensive charitable solicitation acts.
The fundamental features of many of these fundraising regulation laws are a series of definitions, registration or similar requirements for charitable organizations, annual reporting requirements for charitable organizations, exemption of certain charitable organizations from all or a portion of the statutory requirements, registration and reporting requirements for professional fundraisers, registration and reporting requirements for professional solicitors, requirements with respect to the conduct of charitable sales promotions, record-keeping and public information requirements, requirements regarding the contents of contracts
