Now in retirement, Justice Kirby has agreed to come to Vancouver as part of Benefic’s “Charity Matters” series, for several meetings and lectures, from September 29-30, 2010. He is a dynamic speaker whose presentations are always interesting and engaging.

Justice Kirby will be speaking on the topic, “What Is the Public Benefit of Human Rights?” Increasingly, charities are required to demonstrate to CRA that their activities and purposes demonstrate a “public benefit” which is tangible and can be established in court. This is much more difficult in areas of human rights and religion than it is in the relief of poverty or advancement of education. Justice Kirby’s exploration of the impact of human rights principles on the humanitarian, social, political and religious activities of civil society organizations is one of the most significant challenges in the future of charity law.

Justice Kirby has served as a judge since 1983 and was on the High Court of Australia from 1996 – 2009. Kirby has been heavily involved in human rights issues around the world. During his time as Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations for Human Rights in Cambodia, Justice Kirby fought tirelessly for the recognition of HIV/AIDS as a human rights issue. Since his retirement, he has taken an active teaching role, putting his twelve honorary doctorates to good use as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University along with a number of other institutions. We hope you are able to join us for this important conversation with the honourable Michael Kirby on a charity issue that matters.

If you’re interested in attending, please contact info@beneficgroup.com to ask for specific event details and registration information, as soon as possible as the events are in high demand.

The irony is that as a result of this widespread pressure, many charities and non-profits sacrifice effectiveness to be low cost, or perceived as low cost. And in doing so, they often cut more effectiveness and value than cost.

It isn’t reducing cost that brings growth; instead, it’s smart investment and strategic allocation of resources that bring better returns, whether social or economic.

As Raymond Flandez writes writes in Philanthropy.com, though donors often have a visceral reaction against overhead, there are actually many reasons why overhead can be a good thing: the quality of the overhead/administration often determines the quality of the cause, for example. And sometimes, the overhead is the cause.

Nonprofits need to help their donors understand that charitable organizations have a lot in common with businesses. Dan Pallotta, a prominent nonprofit expert, told a group of charity fund raisers in New York.

“We don’t like to see a lot of people making a lot of money in charities,” says Mr. Pallotta, the keynote speaker at this week’s Direct Marketing Association’s New York Nonprofit Conference. People have a “visceral reaction” to the notion.

But nonprofit compensation should match or at least correspond to the salaries in the for-profit world, he says. For one thing, nonprofit salaries at the moment don’t attract the best and brightest. Why work as a chief executive for a medical charity at $230,000, he says, when others with the same MBA have salaries of $400,000 or greater?

Mr. Pallotta, the inventor of multiday AIDS Rides and Breast Cancer 3-Day events, says other items of neglect in the nonprofit world are marketing (there’s limited advertising), risk taking (fear of big fund-raising efforts), time (investment in long-term revenue growth), and expansion (since 1970, only 144 nonprofit organizations have crossed the $50-million revenue barrier; in the for-profit world, some 46,000 companies have.)

In addition, he considers this question from donors a “sinister” one: “What percentage of my donation goes to the cause versus overhead?”

Donors need to learn why that question is problematic, he said. First, it divorces “overhead” from “the cause.” It also forces charities to forgo what they need to solve problems, such as hiring an innovative new leader or tripling the fund-raising staff to increase long-term giving. Most important, this gives donors bad information. The high quality and service of a local soup kitchen, for instance, may be because of its investment in staff and equipment, not because of how it reports low-overhead costs.

Mr. Pallotta told fund raisers to stop using the word “overhead.” Instead, he told them to train donors and board members to ask how effective the organization has been in accomplishing its mission and goal for the cause.

Mr. Pallotta also suggested setting up an organization for nonprofits to defend their practices, create public awareness, spur a legislative force. and establish legal strategies against municipalities that require charities to meet a low overhead standard. The name he proposed for such an entity: the International Charity Defense Council.

The federal government announced on June 29, 2010 that they would be scrapping the mandatory long-form census, which  20 per cent of Canadians receive in a census year, now making it voluntary only.Critics say this will make the results statistically unreliable, which will have a considerable impact on the charity world.

Non-profit and religious groups have spoken out against the change. They say lack of reliable statistical information will make it harder for them to carry out charitable works. The Conservative government has not budged, and so Dueck makes this comparison in Monday’s Globe and Mail: “Like Moses’s nemesis the Pharaoh, the federal government has turned a deaf ear.”

In July Archdeacons Michael Pollesel and John M. Robertson wrote to Industry Minister Tony Clement, the minister responsible for Statistics Canada, on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada. Here’s an excerpt:

“In spiritual terms this loving human response [charitable work] comes by the Grace of God, but in practical terms it is emboldened and upheld by reliable information and sound methodologies that are pillars of our social infrastructure.  The Anglican Church of Canada recognizes the power our country’s statistical information has to help transform thought into action in profound and life giving ways.”

Appropriately, perhaps, an Angus Reid poll on the census found that 50 per cent of Canadians oppose the change. Meanwhile the federal government wants to poll, that is, call ordinary citizens as witnesses to defend the scrapping of the long-form census.

Daniel Indiviglio opens up the debate about what a charity should do with this gift at The Atlantic today.

This month Buffett documented the largest installment since the 2008 financial crisis began.

The first amendment is not the only cause which suffered from this decision.

Once an organization is listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, it is criminally illegal to use weapons other than guns and bullets. It is illegal to offer material support, such as food, medicine or money. But more importantly, it’s now also illegal to offer advice and training to increase human rights, for example, or use speech to convert terrorist organizations to more peaceful strategies.

The record in war zones is that guns and bullets may result in military victory but they do not cause a change in the visceral or intellectual allegiances of the vanquished. Changing hearts and minds requires speaking to the protagonists and following up with humanitarian aid.

The U.S. has always been more comfortable with the black and white worldview of “either you are for us or you are against us“. The irony is that its military personnel are increasingly asked to engage in a strategy based upon a battle for hearts and minds even as its civilians are forbidden to do so. And the Supreme Court is telling civilians who use words that they must put them aside, and leave the battle to those who use guns.

It is difficult to believe that American soldiers do not provide what in law is material support to terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan in pursuing this strategy. However, the U.S. is unwilling to allow charities to pursue humanitarian, or even human rights, activities designed to change the hearts and minds of people currently engaged in terrorist violence.

It is not realistic to expect a hearts and mind strategy to succeed if every conversation must be conducted within the constraints of Chief Justice John Roberts‘ decision. It is quite clear that there is no desire for any but the military to carry on the war on terrorism.

For those outside the U.S., it is particularly intriguing that this law applies only to foreign terrorist organizations. Either there is a double standard for domestic terrorist organizations, or the U.S. is in denial as to whether homegrown terrorists are a threat, or even a possibility, in the U.S.

Fighting with words is necessary to win the war on terrorism. But it doesn’t seem likely that the Supreme Court will change its opinion any time soon. Given that President Obama’s current nominee for the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, argued the case, and that the dissenting judgment was written by Justice Stephen Breyer, whom she will replace, it is unlikely that we can look to the courts to support charities employing either words or actions in the battle for hearts and minds.

This was the question at the heart of the Inquiry into the Air India bombing and the investigation that dragged on with little result for decades after the attack.

Blake Bromley was called as an expert witness at the Inquiry, and was asked to comment in the media when the final report were released on Thursday, June 17  – only days away from the 25th anniversary of the bombing.

On the day of the release, Blake was on CBC’s On The Coast with Stephen Quinn. Blake pointed out that anti-terrorism laws came into effect after Sept, 2001, but not after Canada’s own terrorist disaster in June, 1985. In the interview find out how much money the attack cost the Air India bombers.

Find the interview at the On The Coast site and scroll down to Thursday, June 17.

On Friday he appeared on the Christy Clark show on CKNW to discuss the report and the prevalence of charities being used to funnel money for terrorist acts — whether or not the donors are aware of the destination.

This is the link to the CKNW audio vault. Let the page load and then start listening at the half-way mark.

Buffett pledged 99 per cent of his $46 billion fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in 2006, and both Buffett and the Gateses are encouraging other billionaires to follow in their footsteps.

They call it the Giving Pledge.

The question is, will this campaign only focus on the good of giving, and not on the social good the donation achieves?

A campaign to give to charity often focuses only on the benefits the donor receives by way of tax benefits, and sees giving to charity as an end to itself.

But sometimes charity is not the best solution.

Charity has constraints in how innovative it can be in investing to provide solutions to social problems. There needs to be more focus on funding the vehicles best able to achieve change with the money given and not just on the act of giving.

Buffett and the Gateses say that this should be more than a donation commitment, and that billionaires should pledge to “give wisely and learn from their peers.” If the Giving Pledge truly wants “giving wisely” to be their aim, and they take Carnegie and the Rockefellers as inspiration, they will have to encourage billionaires to donate for the best social return.

BP has been recognized by the U.S. federal government, the Queen, the Interstate Oil and Gas Commission, and other prestigious organizations. And clearly those certificates are looking a little oil-soaked.

But here’s something that will be even less popular. Though those charities, government agencies and non-profits that have given BP awards for corporate social responsibility and environmental stewardship do very good work, and have good intentions, we have to hold them somewhat responsible for BP’s fake green halo, and the understandable public disappointment over it.

Here’s an example from the traditional charity world. Charities have known for a long time that you have to do due diligence when it comes to accepting a big donation. If you’re a university, and you accept $10 million from an individual or corporation, and in return put that donor corporation’s name on a building, you’re giving them something just as valuable back — you’re giving them the credibility of trading on your good image, of being associated with and approved by a place dedicated to learning, research, altruism and the betterment of society.

The people in the many donor corporations I’ve worked with, as a charity lawyer, also have good intentions and feel good about the donation. But when it comes down to it, when their corporation makes a donation, it’s a bottom line decision.

Companies don’t get tax receipts for making donations for the same reasons as private donors might. For a corporation, it’s a marketing expense. In short, companies spend money on donations because they expect to earn a return on that expense.

No person or company is perfect, and that shouldn’t be the test. But there’s a scale. And that’s why even though universities might be tempted to accept every cash from every donor that offers, sometimes it costs too much. The university’s image would be tarnished for one thing. And also, the university knows that boosting the image of a corporation that doesn’t deserve that boost will hurt society.

But corporate social responsibility organizations — charities, non-profits and government agencies — aren’t always applying this test. In fact, many unethical companies get awards for improvement, even though they continue to do unethical and irresponsible things. And while there might be psychological rationale for this, there’s also a public cost — and a financial cost.

We have to applaud corporate social responsibility organizations for their work in rewarding and encouraging ethical behavior. When a group gives a high-profile CSR award to a company for any kind of responsible behavior — social, environmental, etc – that award not only encourages and rewards that company, but it also inspires other companies to behave better, so that they too might enjoy the improved profile and profits that come from being an award recipient.

But when a company, say BP, gets an award, say for sustainability (i.e. for making some improvements, or for being slightly better than some other competitors), the award can lead to the public misperception that the company is, in fact, sustainable. And that false public perception means that company starts to be treated better than they actually deserve. The company might get more investors as a result, their share prices might go up, they might get more liberal treatment by government and regulators, or many other things — all of which can have social, environmental and financial costs.

Then, when the truth comes out, there’s even more public outrage. If a kindergarten teacher and a mob boss committed the same crime, there would be more public anger directed at the teacher. And for good reason: the teacher has benefited from false public perception.

The public is angry at BP. It’s because of environmental damage that’s beyond calculation. And it’s because that damage is caused by BP — a corporation which we considered to be more green and responsible than many of its competitors.

So while we need to support and encourage the work of CSR organizations, we need to be careful that their awards and the public recognition resulting in the greening of corporations aren’t in fact the worst form of greenwashing.

The petition is being delivered today by two Liberal MPs. It calls for Ottawa to formally recognize the June 1984 Golden Temple killings of Sikhs in India as genocide. However, Michael Ignatieff has already publicly denounced the petition.

It’ll be interesting to see what kind of response this petition will receive today, and see whether it will help or hinder the debate on religious extremism in Canada.

As an expert witness at the Air India inquiry, I’m especially interested to read the report, and I’ll post my thoughts here on the blog when it’s released.

In the old paradigm, charities tended to work getting aid to victims of natural and political disasters without many legal obstacles. Charities didn’t have to worry about regulations that could potentially label them as terrorists themselves. And the work tended to be done under the political radar, in fact. And in most cases, the point was to deliver the aid, not to transform the process of delivering aid into a political action.

But since 2001, due to the war on terrorism, governments and regulators have explicitly and implicitly declared international humanitarian aid organizations to be combatants when their work provides aid that, even inadvertently, falls into the hands of organizations considered by some governments to be terrorists.

And because the climate has become so politicized, instead of shrinking from being slurred as combatants, some charities have been galvanized, and have become less passive in their response to oppression and deprivation.

The people involved in the Gaza Freedom flotilla are the most recent, high profile example of the new paradigm. They delivered aid directly to people in Gaza in a way that also simultaneously sought to break the Israeli blockade and raise global awareness of the consequences of the international sanctions against Gaza. They made a political statement. And in response to their actions, the Israeli government labeled them as terrorists and demanded that the humanitarian aid supplies be turned over to the government of Israel, who would then deliver those supplies to people the government deemed worthy of receiving aid. Of course, the charity refused.

It’s not a new pattern for governments to demand that charities work through them. Communist governments and dictatorships have made similar demands of international humanitarian aid shipments for decades. And in that old paradigm, during the cold war, a charity would likely have considered it a moral failing to allow the oppressor to choose which of the oppressed should receive aid.

In fact, prior to the war on terrorism, many aid organizations took measures to actively thwart governments’ attempts to become intermediaries in aid delivery. Does anyone believe that Robert Mugabe can be trusted to provide aid to human rights activists in Zimbabwe? Instead, in many cases, those charities found “underground” means to deliver the aid, and yet remained apolitical.

But in the new paradigm of international humanitarian assistance, as in the case of the Gaza Freedom flotilla, because aid delivery has become political, we will witness more groups convert humanitarian aid delivery into political action.

And the situation becomes even more complicated because when governments and regulators invoke the language of the war on terrorism, and accuse non-government activists of supporting terrorist organizations, that often incites activists to accuse the governments of being oppressors or terrorists. The Prime Minister of Turkey even called the Israeli actions “inhumane state terrorism.”

Because of the paranoia and politics which have become part of the new paradigm of international philanthropy, many charities have backed off from funding and delivering needed humanitarian aid when there is danger that their participation will be criticized. Just as the priest in the parable Jesus told about the Good Samaritan: some people are choosing to pass by on the other side of the road so they don’t have to determine whether the person lying there, beaten, naked and bleeding, is a victim of terror or a terrorist.

For food, education and health care to reach real victims, we need humanitarian issues to be governed by humanity rather than politics.