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The NASCO Board of Directors is pleased to announce the creation of the Karin Kunstler-Goldman Award for Excellence in the field of charity oversight and regulation. The inaugural “KKG Award” was presented to its namesake, Karin Kunstler-Goldman, on October 8, 2024, at the NAAG/NASCO Annual Charity Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

About Karin Kunstler-Goldman

Karin Kunstler Goldman is the Deputy Bureau Chief in the New York State Attorney General’s Charities Bureau.  Karin was the 2001-2002 president of the National Association of State Charity Officials and is a founding member of the Governance Matters. 

She has served on the advisory board of New York University’s National Center on Philanthropy and the Internal Revenue Service’s Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt Entities. As a volunteer, Karin participated in training programs conducted for charity regulators throughout the country by the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia University Law School. 

As an Eisenhower Exchange Fellow in Hungary, Karin worked with nonprofit organizations, government officials and legislative drafters in developing the law and regulations affecting Hungary’s nonprofit sector.  She has consulted with government officials in Ukraine and China on the development of statutory regulation of charitable organizations in those countries.  Karin was a guest of the People’s Republic of China at its 2007 International Symposium on Charity Legislation in China at which she was a speaker, and in 2015 she participated in workshops in China on the developing nonprofit law. 

Prior to joining the New York Attorney General’s office, Karin was a Reginald Heber Smith Fellow and a staff attorney at South Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation. 

Karin attended Tougaloo Southern Christian College in Mississippi during the fall semester of the 1962 – 1963 academic year and participated Freedom Summer, the 1964 voter registration project in Mississippi. Karin and her husband, Neal, spent two years as Peace Corps volunteers in Senegal, West Africa.  Karin has a law degree from Rutgers University Law School, a BA from Connecticut College and an MA from Columbia University.

In 2024, Karin received the Vanguard Award for distinguished lifetime achievement in the nonprofit sector from the Nonprofit Organizations Committee of the American Bar Association, Business Law Section.

About the Karin Kunstler Goldman Award for Excellence

The Karin Kunstler Goldman Award, created in 2024, recognizes excellence in the field of state charity regulation and oversight. The award, made periodically and at the discretion of the NASCO board of directors, honors select charity regulators who demonstrate many of the qualities and achievements of the award’s namesake including, but not limited to:

• Long-term professional commitment to charity regulation
• Success and innovation in charity regulatory practice
• Significant contribution to the education and training of state charity regulators and the nonprofit sector, in the U.S. and internationally
• National recognition as a leader among state charity regulators
• Generosity of spirit and enthusiasm for the work of charity regulation and oversight

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 14, 2024 MEDIA CONTACT: Steve Irwin: 614-728-5417 Former Columbus Zoo CEO Sentenced to Prison (DELAWARE, Ohio) — The former chief executive officer of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium was sentenced to 7 years in prison today for his role in a scheme that defrauded the zoo of at least $2.3 million, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced. Tom Stalf had pleaded guilty on July 23 to 15 felonies, including aggravated theft, conspiracy, telecommunications fraud and tampering with records. “The zoo has long been a crown jewel of Central Ohio, but this pretender stole the jewels right out of that crown,” Yost said. “Cages can hold more than zoo animals.” As the zoo’s CEO, Stalf took advantage of his position to enrich himself, his family and his friends by scheming to defraud the zoo through a pattern of corrupt activity and lying through financial forms to cover up the wrongdoing. He and two other former zoo executives – Marketing Director Pete Fingerhut and Chief Financial Officer Greg Bell – were named in a Sept. 18, 2023, indictment, accused of manipulating credit-card and check-authorization forms for more than a decade and using the nonprofit’s public funds for personal use. Since their indictment, two additional former zoo employees were also charged. The stolen money was spent on lavish times unrelated to the zoo, including suites and tickets to concerts and sporting events; golf memberships; trips to multiple states and foreign countries; meals, beverages and alcohol; and motor vehicles. In a sentencing memorandum filed with the court, prosecutors suggested that Stalf and his co-conspirators had failed in their fiduciary obligations to the zoo and taxpayers. “Leaders of charities and nonprofits in Ohio undertake the responsibility to support the charitable missions of the organizations they lead and set an example to the employees they oversee to be stewards of the organization and its assets,” the memo said. As part of the sentencing, Stalf will be required to pay $315,572.65 in criminal restitution to the Columbus Zoo, state of Ohio and Internal Revenue Service. The amount is in addition to $400,000 in restitution that was already been paid on his behalf. Of the four others charged in the scheme, all but Fingerhut have been sentenced: Greg Bell was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $583,697.44 in criminal restitution. Former purchasing agent Tracy Murnane was sentenced to 60 days in jail and three years of probation. Murnane paid $101,000 in civil and criminal restitution. Grant Bell, a former purchasing assistant and the son of Greg Bell, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay $8,554.61 in criminal restitution. Fingerhut, who pleaded guilty on July 2, is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 28. The Ohio Attorney General’s Special Prosecutions Section led the prosecution at the request of Delaware County Prosecutor Melissa Schiffel. The Ohio Auditor’s Office assisted with the investigation and prosecution.

By Sanjay Talwani ·  Listen to article

Law360 (October 2, 2024, 6:05 PM EDT) — A senior home on Martha’s Vineyard is exempt from property taxes, a Massachusetts tax panel said in a decision released Wednesday, ruling that the owner, a charitable nonprofit, had a sufficient presence at the property for the exemption.

The Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board agreed with nonprofit Havenside Corp. that its four-building property was owned and operated in furtherance of its charitable goals. The property was therefore exempt from property taxation, the board said, reversing the determination of the Tisbury Board of Assessors and striking down the $12,000 tax bill the organization paid pursuant to its 2021 valuation.

The town assessment board had determined that the approximately 30 residents of the complex occupied the property in traditional landlord-tenant relationships. But the appellate board disagreed, noting that the owner provided extensive social and health services as well as affordable housing to residents who did not qualify for housing assistance and could not otherwise afford to own or rent in the community.

The owner employed a full-time manager who provided numerous services to residents in coordination with a local nursing association and other organizations, the decision said.

State law allows the tax exemption on real estate occupied by a charitable group or its officers “for the purposes for which it is organized,” the decision noted.

The decision was promulgated Sept. 24.

The case is Havenside Corp. v. Board of Assessors of the Town of Tisbury, case number F347297, before the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board.

–Editing by Aaron Pelc.

By Spencer Brewer ·  Listen to article

Law360 (October 2, 2024, 10:25 PM EDT) — The nonprofit group Media Matters for America appealed to the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday after a Texas federal judge ordered it to turn over its donor lists to social media platform X Corp., saying that it still had a First Amendment privilege to keep the names of its donors private.

In a Tuesday motion to stay, the left-leaning media watchdog asked U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor to stay the case until the Fifth Circuit could weigh in on whether Media Matters waived its First Amendment privilege against compelled disclosure of donor-related documents. Judge O’Connor previously ruled that the watchdog had waived its privilege, ordering the nonprofit to hand over the documents to X.

“No court in the United States has ever compelled a media organization to turn over — without even the prospect of redaction — every ‘donor and financial document’ in its possession,” Media Matters said in the Tuesday motion to stay.

X, formerly known as Twitter, launched the suit after a reporter at Media Matters penned an article titled “X has been placing ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle and Xfinity next to pro-Nazi content,” claiming the platform was responsible for neo-Nazi and antisemitic content being placed next to advertisers’ paid posts. The social media company said several advertisers fled the site because of alleged lies in the article.

In Media Matters’ telling, the court granted the requests based on conjecture that some of the documents in question could have bearing on jurisdiction or malice, despite first agreeing that turning over donor lists would likely go beyond the nonprofit’s First Amendment rights. The court skated past the “granularity” that the First Amendment demands, the nonprofit said.

The court’s conclusion that the watchdog’s First Amendment rights somehow don’t apply to their donors runs counter to the record of the case, the group said. Media Matters is in an “existential struggle” to sustain its journalism against a foe that seeks to silence its critics, it said in its brief.

The media watchdog also claims to have complied with previous court orders. A stay in the case would serve the public interest and prevent serious harm, it said.

“Should this Court’s order compelling disclosure of donors’ information remain in place, the harm will be immediate and irreparable,” Media Matters said. “Existing donors will face a substantially increased risk of threats, harassment, and reprisals, as Media Matters’s own employees have already experienced.”

In the wake of the suit, it said one harasser sent an image of a noose to Eric Hananoki, the reporter who wrote the article. Media Matters said a voicemail message threatened violence if the watchdog kept “pushing things,” and another harasser emailed a Media Matters reporter a photograph of him and his wife and wrote: “We know where you live. Expect a visit.”

To subject the watchdog’s donors to these kinds of threats would breach their right to associate privately, Media Matters said in an earlier filing. The threats against Media Matters’ staff have “exploded in both number and intensity” since X launched its lawsuit.

X is represented by Judd E. Stone II, Christopher D. Hilton, Ari Cuenin, Alexander M. Dvorscak and Michael R. Abrams of Stone Hilton PLLC and John C. Sullivan of SL Law PLLC.

Media Matters is represented by Andrew LeGrand, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. and Amer S. Ahmed of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Abha Khanna, Aria C. Branch, Christopher D. Dodge and Jacob D. Shelly of Elias Law Group LLP.

The case is X Corp. v. Media Matters for America et al., case number 4:23-cv-01175, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

–Editing by Andrew Cohen.

NASCO Issues Guidance Regarding Scam PACs