1.
Foundation (nonprofit)
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A foundation is a legal category of nonprofit organization that will typically either donate funds and support to other organizations, or provide the source of funding for its own charitable purposes. Foundations incorporate private foundations and public foundations and this type of non-profit organization differs from a private foundation which is typically endowed by an individual or family. One of the characteristics of the legal entities existing under the status of Foundations, is a diversity of structures and purposes. Nevertheless, there are common structural elements that are the first observed under legal scrutiny or classification. Others may be provided by the authority at each particular jurisdiction. There is no commonly accepted legal definition in Europe for a foundation, there is a proposal for a European Foundation, a legal form that would be recognised throughout Europe, see European Foundation Project. The term foundation, in general, is used to describe a legal entity. Foundations as legal structures and/or legal persons, may have a diversity of forms, unlike a company, foundations have no shareholders, though they may have a board, an assembly and voting members. The foundation has a distinct patrimony independent of its founder, Foundations are often set up for charitable purposes, family patrimony and collective purposes. Foundations in Finland must have state approval and register at the National Board of Patents, a minimum capital of €25,000 is obligatory. A foundation can be created with any purpose and may have economic activity if this is specified in its Bylaws. There are not many Foundations in comparison to the rest of Europe, in practice public administration requires at least €1 million is considered necessary. States representatives have a seat in the Board. German regulations allow the creation of any foundation for public or private purposes in keeping with the concept of a gemeinwohlkonforme Allzweckstiftung, a foundation should not have commercial activities as its main purpose, but they are permitted if they serve the main purpose of the foundation. There is no minimum starting capital, although in practice at least is considered necessary, a German foundation can either be charitable or serve a private interest. If they engage in activities, only the commercially active part of the entity is taxed. A family foundation serving private interests is taxed like any other legal entity, there is no central register for German foundations. Only charitable foundations are subject to supervision by state authorities, family foundations are not supervised after establishment
2.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a private foundation founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It was launched in 2000 and is said to be the largest transparently operated private foundation in the world, the primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and in America, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology. The foundation, based in Seattle, Washington, is controlled by its three trustees, Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, other principal officers include Co-Chair William H. Gates, Sr. and Chief Executive Officer Susan Desmond-Hellmann. It had an endowment of US$44.3 billion as of 31 December 2014, in 2007, its founders were ranked as the second most generous philanthropists in America, and Warren Buffett the first. As of May 16,2013, Bill Gates had donated US$28 billion to the foundation, in 1997, the foundation was formed as the William H. Gates Foundation. During the foundations following years, funding grew to US$2 billion, on June 15,2006, Gates announced his plans to transition out of a day-to-day role with Microsoft, effective July 31,2008, to allow him to devote more time to working with the foundation. In 2005, Bill and Melinda Gates, along with the musician Bono, were named by Time as Persons of the Year 2005 for their charitable work, in the case of Bill and Melinda Gates, the work referenced was that of this foundation. In April 2010, Gates was invited to visit and speak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he asked the students to take on the problems of the world in their futures. He also explained the nature and philosophy of his philanthropic endeavors, the foundation also launched a podcast series. This is called No Ceilings, The Full Participation Project.5 billion, Buffett gave the foundation two years to abide by the third requirement. The Gates Foundation received 5% of the shares in July 2006, in July 2013, Buffet announced another donation of his companys Class B stock, this time worth $2 billion, to the Gates Foundation. To maintain its status as a foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation must donate funds equal to at least 5 percent of its assets each year. This move has been applauded by those who are working in the area of capacity building. Its terms have been called the most stringent among similar OA policies, as of January 1,2015 their Open Access policy is effective for all new agreements. The following table lists the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations committed funding as recorded in their International Aid Transparency Initiative publications, the Gates Foundation announced in October 2013 that it would join the IATI. The IATI publications only include a subset of Gates Foundation grants, the following table lists the top receiving organizations to which the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed funding, between 2009 and 2015. The table again only includes grants recorded in the Gates Foundations IATI publications, the foundation explains on its website that its trustees divided the organization into two entities, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. The foundation section, based in Seattle, US, focuses on improving health and alleviating extreme poverty, the foundation posts its audited financial statements and 990-PF forms on the Financials section of its website as they become available
3.
Common law
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Common law is the body of law developed from the thirteenth century to the present day, as case law or precedent, by judges, courts, and tribunals. In cases where the parties disagree on what the law is, if a similar dispute has been resolved in the past, the court is usually bound to follow the reasoning used in the prior decision. Resolution of the issue in one case becomes precedent that binds future courts, stare decisis, the principle that cases should be decided according to consistent principled rules so that similar facts will yield similar results, lies at the heart of all common law systems. A common law system is a system that gives great precedential weight to common law. Common law systems originated during the Middle Ages in England, today, one third of the worlds population live in common law jurisdictions or in systems mixed with civil law. The term common law has many connotations, the first three set out here are the most-common usages within the legal community. Other connotations from past centuries are seen, and are sometimes heard in everyday speech. Blacks Law Dictionary, 10th Ed. gives as definition 1,1, the body of law derived from judicial decisions, rather than from statutes or constitutions, CASELAW, STATUTORY LAW. In this connotation, common law distinguishes the authority that promulgated a law. e, examples include most criminal law and procedural law before the 20th century, and even today, most contract law and the law of torts. Interstitial common law decisions that analyze, interpret and determine the fine boundaries. Publication of decisions, and indexing, is essential to the development of common law, while all decisions in common law jurisdictions are precedent, some become leading cases or landmark decisions that are cited especially often. Blacks 10th Ed. definition 2, differentiates common law jurisdictions, by contrast, in civil law jurisdictions, courts lack authority to act if there is no statute. Judicial precedent is given less weight, which means that a judge deciding a given case has more freedom to interpret the text of a statute independently. For example, the Napoleonic code expressly forbade French judges to pronounce general principles of law. As a rule of thumb, common law systems trace their history to England, blacks 10th Ed. definition 4, differentiates common law from equity. This split propagated to many of the colonies, including the United States, for most purposes, most jurisdictions, including the U. S. federal system and most states, have merged the two courts. Additionally, even before the courts were merged, most courts were permitted to apply both law and equity, though under potentially different procedural law. In the United States, determining whether the Seventh Amendments right to a jury trial applies or whether the issue will be decided by a judge, the standard of review and degree of deference given by an appellate tribunal to the decision of the lower tribunal under review
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The Bahamas
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The Bahamas, known officially as the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is an archipelagic state within the Lucayan Archipelago. The capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence, the designation of the Bahamas can refer either to the country or to the larger island chain that it shares with the Turks and Caicos Islands. As stated in the mandate/manifesto of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Bahamas is the site of Columbus first landfall in the New World in 1492. At that time, the islands were inhabited by the Lucayan, although the Spanish never colonised the Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola. The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera, the Bahamas became a British Crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American War of Independence, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists in the Bahamas, they brought their slaves with them, Africans constituted the majority of the population from this period. Slavery in the Bahamas was abolished in 1834, Today the descendants of slaves and free Africans make up nearly 90% of the population, issues related to the slavery years are part of society. The Bahamas became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1973, retaining Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch, in terms of gross domestic product per capita, the Bahamas is one of the richest countries in the Americas, with an economy based on tourism and finance. The name Bahamas is derived from either the Taino ba ha ma, alternatively, it may originate from Guanahani, a local name of unclear meaning. In English, the Bahamas is one of two countries whose self-standing short name begins with the word the, along with The Gambia. Taino people moved into the uninhabited southern Bahamas from Hispaniola and Cuba around the 11th century and they came to be known as the Lucayan people. An estimated 30,000 Lucayan inhabited the Bahamas at the time of Christopher Columbus arrival in 1492, Columbuss first landfall in the New World was on an island he named San Salvador. Some researchers believe this site to be present-day San Salvador Island, an alternative theory holds that Columbus landed to the southeast on Samana Cay, according to calculations made in 1986 by National Geographic writer and editor Joseph Judge, based on Columbuss log. Evidence in support of this remains inconclusive, on the landfall island, Columbus made first contact with the Lucayan and exchanged goods with them. The Spanish forced much of the Lucayan population to Hispaniola for use as forced labour, the slaves suffered from harsh conditions and most died from contracting diseases to which they had no immunity, half of the Taino died from smallpox alone. The population of the Bahamas was severely diminished, in 1648, the Eleutherian Adventurers, led by William Sayle, migrated from Bermuda. These English Puritans established the first permanent European settlement on an island which they named Eleuthera—the name derives from the Greek word for freedom and they later settled New Providence, naming it Sayles Island after one of their leaders. To survive, the settlers salvaged goods from wrecks, in 1670 King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas in North America
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Charitable organization
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A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization. It differs from types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals as well as social well-being. The legal definition of charitable organization varies according to the country, the regulation, tax treatment, and the way in which charity law affects charitable organizations also varies. Financial figures are important indicators to assess the sustainability of a charity. This information can impact a charitys reputation with donors and societies, and thus, Charitable organizations often depend partly on donations from for-profit-organizations. Such donations to charitable organizations represent a form of corporate philanthropy. Until the mid-18th century, charity was mainly distributed through parish relief, churches, almshouses, Charities were also responsible for education, health, housing and even prisons. It was in the Enlightenment era that charitable and philanthropic activity among voluntary associations, societies, gentlemans clubs, and mutual associations began to flourish in England and the upper-classes increasingly adopted a philanthropic attitude toward the disadvantaged. This new social activism was channeled into the establishment of charitable organizations and this emerging upper-class fashion for benevolence resulted in the incorporation of the first charitable organizations. This was the first such charity in the world and served as the precedent for incorporated associational charities everywhere. Jonas Hanway, another notable philanthropist of the era established The Marine Society in 1756 as the first seafarers charity, by 1763, the Society had recruited over 10,000 men and it was incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1772. Hanway was also instrumental in establishing the Magdalen Hospital to rehabilitate prostitutes and these organizations were funded by subscription and run as voluntary associations. Charities also began to adopt campaigning roles, where they would champion a cause, the process was however a lengthy one being finally concluded when Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1962. This period also saw growing philosophical debate between those who championed state intervention and those who believed that private charities should provide welfare, thomas Malthus, the political economist, criticized poor relief for paupers on economic and moral grounds and proposed leaving charity entirely to the private sector. His views were influential and informed the Victorian laissez-faire attitude toward state intervention for the poor. During the 19th century, a profusion of charitable organizations were set up to alleviate the conditions of the working class in the slums. The Labourers Friend Society, chaired by Lord Shaftesbury in the United Kingdom in 1830, was set up to working class conditions. This included the promotion of allotment of land to labourers for cottage husbandry that later became the allotment movement and this was one of the first housing associations, a philanthropic endeavour that flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century brought about by the growth of the middle class
6.
Supporting organization (charity)
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A supporting organization, in the United States, is a public charity that operates under the U. S. Internal Revenue Code in 26 USCA509, a supporting organization either makes grants to, or performs the operations of, a public charity similar to a private foundation. However, unlike donations to a foundation, donations to a supporting organization garner the same higher deduction rate as donations to public charities. However, supporting organizations allow less control over the organization to the founders than private foundations, the Internal Revenue Code calls a public charity that relies on a supporting organization a supported organization. The Tax Reform Act of 1969 created private foundations and imposed restrictions on this classification, including excise taxes. This Act created supporting organizations as an exception to private foundations—because they are organized, operated, Supporting organizations are not subject to the problems and abuses found in foundations that led to the creation and associated restrictions on private foundations. Mostly large and medium-sized donors created supporting organizations in order to some control over their donated assets. As a consequence, supporting organizations proved attractive to high and middle-high value donors with anecdotal evidence of their widespread abuse, Supporting organizations became subject to much criticism upon two perceived abuses. One perceived abuse related to control, senators Baucus and Grassley argued that supporting organizations, particularly Type III, allowed donors to retain too much control over their assets. Another perceived abuse related to liberal charitable deductions allowed to donors who contribute to supporting organizations, since donors retained so much control, these critics believed that they should not also enjoy deductions that they would get for donating to public charities. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 cracked down on supporting organizations and this act applied further regulations and penalties that took away many of the privileges that supporting organizations had over private foundations. The act applies the self-dealing regulations of private foundations on supporting organizations, the act requires a payout—but leaves the exact demands of the payout, including rate and from which assets for the Treasury to determine later. The Act applied the private foundation rules of business holdings. Further restrictions, including explication of the payout rate contours will result from the Congress mandated survey that the IRS promulgated. In the Pension Protection Act, Congress mandated a study on the organizations to understand their role in the exempt organization world. It was called the Study on Donor Advised Funds and Supporting Organizations, the organizational test demands that the supporting organization organize and operate exclusively to support one or more specified publicly supported charities. Here, the organization must have its governing documents limit the organization to charitable purposes for specified supported organizations. An exception exists for the requirement when the two organizations have a continuous and historic relationship
