Mission Accomplished? A Cross-national Examination of Charity Dissolution (original) (raw)
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Public Management Review
Governments increasingly regulate charities to restrict the number of organizations claiming taxation exemptions, reduce charities' ability to abuse state support, and detect and deter fraud. Public interest theory arguments suggest that regulation could increase philanthropy through enhancing public trust and confidence in charities. Nevertheless, public choice theory argues that regulators seek to maximize political returns, 'manage' charity-government relationships, and reduce potential regulatory capture. We analyse charity regulatory regimes using these two regulatory theories and the relative costs and benefits of different regulatory regimes. Heeding these should reduce regulatory inefficiency and balance accountability and transparency demands against benefits charities receive from regulation.
Redefining the measure of success: a historical and comparative look at charity regulation
Research Handbook on Not-For-Profit Law, 2018
4 and Ireland each struggled a little to launch their respective regulators in the subsequent years before finally achieving success in Australia in 2013 (although the existence of the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC) was only guaranteed in February 2016 when federal government threats of abolition were lifted) and in 2014 with the Irish Charities Regulatory Authority (CRA). Charity law reform was not confined to Europe and the Antipodes. Asia also made strides with Singapore revamping its Commissioner of Charities (SCOC) and establishing its new Charity Council in 2007 2 while China introduced its first Charity Law in 2016, making civil affairs departments at county and higher levels responsible for the registration and oversight of Chinese charitable organisations. 3 These countries all share, at least in principle, a similar regulatory aim. They strive to identify and catalogue the very existence of the charity sector within their borders; to approve their status as charities in accordance with predetermined statutory criteria and, once registered, to make those organisations accountable for the funds they receive and transparent in the conduct of their affairs in the achievement of their charitable goals. The impetus for this 2 The office of the Commissioner of Charities (SCOC), established by the Charities Act 1982, sat under the Ministry of Finance and concerned itself with tax matters for the first 25 years of its existence. Following the recommendations of the Final Report of the Inter-Ministry Committee on the Regulation of Charities and Institutions of a Public Character (March 2006), the Singapore Government increased its registration and regulation responsibilities in the Charities Act (Cap 37, 2007 Rev Ed Sing), transferring it to the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sport. The 2007 Act also established the Charity Council to operate in parallel with the SCOC and promote self-regulation. It is comprised of sector representatives, representatives from accountancy, law and corporate governance fields, as well as state ministries.
Charity performance reporting, regulatory approaches and standard-setting
Journal of Accounting and Public Policy
Internationally, there are strong calls for charities' formal annual reporting to include nonfinancial performance information. Without the international standards common in other sectors, national accounting standard-setters often regulate charities' reporting. Lacking evidence on approaches to encouraging/ mandating charity performance reporting, and the effectiveness of these approaches, we ask: "How have different jurisdictions responded to calls for increasing performance reporting?" We conduct a benchmarking study that indicates differences in current reporting practices between Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. By discussing both current regimes and proposed projects, we develop and illustrate a typology of regulatory approaches to performance reporting. These range from command and control, where standard-setters mandate specific performance reporting standards, through to market regulation, where charities and/or sector bodies acting as regulatory entrepreneurs determine what is to be reported. Between these extremes, the typology describes new governance approaches, with standard-setters partnering and collaborating with other actors. These approaches lead to different requirements with potentially significant implications for performance accountability in the respective jurisdictions. We argue that our regulatory typology contributes useful insights for the many jurisdictions grappling with how to regulate their charity sector and encourage performance reporting.
REGULATING CHARITIES: THE INSIDE STORY is a fascinating amalgam that is part history, part chronology, and part storytelling about recent changes in how five historically connected common law countries approach regulating their charitable sectors. These countries are England and Wales, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, with each country’s evolutions being covered distinctively in at least two chapters. Chapter authors include those who have served as principle executives of their country’s primary regulatory body, members and chairs of government oversight commissions, a legislator, and leaders and practitioners from within the respective charitable sectors, including one with a decidedly state-level orientation. Many authors cross several categories, and some cut across multiple jurisdictions having served as advisors to others or substantive participants in international gatherings of charitable sector regulators. The book decidedly eschews a coordinated effort or commanded approach and successfully avoids merely comparing and contrasting among jurisdictions. Instead, the editors allow the chapter authors to communicate their perspectives on and experiences with the recent changes in the manner they believe will be most useful. In the process, the reader can draw their own comparisons, especially across the several key themes that organically emerge: the influence of political power, challenges balancing regulator independence vis a vis government and the sector, views of permissible proactive engagement by charitable sector entities in policy activity, and the effects in some countries of increasingly blurring lines with other sectors -- government and business. With this combination and approach, REGULATING CHARITIES satisfies certain curiosities, stokes others, and ignites new ones, perhaps especially in allowing the reader to decipher for him or herself just how much of the approaches taken by any given jurisdiction may or may not be readily transferrable to others. The book succeeds in demonstrating that appropriately regulating the charitable sector is challenging and that adapting from another jurisdiction(s) is not as easy nor as obvious as it might appear on the surface.
CHARITIES: THE RECURRING QUESTIONS
Financial Accountability & Management, 2009
This special issue of FAM is based on a selection of papers from the EIASM research workshop on the Challenges of Managing the Third Sector which was held at the International University of Venice on San Servolo island on March 12-14, 2007. In previous research workshops in this series, there has been debate on the positioning of different disciplines which are deployed in the investigation of the challenges facing charitable organisations. These considerations have shown the debt owed to both economic and sociological thinking in past studies and the emergence of a more managerial perspective in understanding these distinctive organisations . Previous research workshops have also discussed the vitality of the Third Sector, as evidenced by the emergence of charitable organisations in new areas of activity such as credit unions, certain persistent challenges such as the forms of information necessary for monitoring charities and for prospective donors, the use of resources by charities, and the adoption of more professional management techniques . Underlying the distinctive nature of charities and charitable giving are fundamental challenges of the quantum of funds available to increasing numbers of charities and the dangers this poses for their continued existence , as further evidenced by a longitudinal study of Irish voluntary hospitals .
Financial reporting by charities: a matched case study analysis from four countries
Public Money & Management
This paper analyses financial reporting requirements applicable to charities in four jurisdictions: Australia; England; Ireland; New Zealand, using case study analysis which compares the actual financial statements of four carefully matched charities operating in the same field and with similar levels of total income. We highlight common issues and implications in terms of the concepts underpinning not-for-profit (NPO) financial reporting and the case for harmonized international NPO accounting standards.
New Zealand has recently announced a Charities Commission, but, in the interim, donors and funders rely on sector-neutral accounting standards and charities' integrity to provide accountability. This paper explores the nature of not-for-profit reporting in New Zealand as well as the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Hong Kong. Specifically, it considers charitable institution reporting frameworks within each country, comparing and contrasting philosophical and practical differences between them. Accountability for charities is vital to ensure public funding. Misappropriation of funds harms the individual charity and the industry as a whole. Both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands use regulation to encourage charities to provide transparency and fiscal accountability. Whilst in the United Kingdom this is compulsory, in the Netherlands the system is a voluntary one, supported by a media campaign to inform donors. Hong Kong currently has regulation only for public appeals, although a voluntary accountability system to cover all charitable activity is being considered. Financial reporting for charities therefore shows great diversity across these countries, despite International Accounting Standards, and this paper makes suggestions for further research in this area.