[Wikipedia-l] Interstate charitable solicitations

Mon Oct 6 20:39:26 UTC 2003

From: "Jimmy Wales" jwales at bomis.com

> http://www.charitychannel.com/forums/cyb-acc/resources/monaghan.html

This is a good historical legal essay, but there have been things
that have happened subsequent to that statement of the confusion
in the law.

> We of course want to do everything right, but as a practical matter I
> doubt we're the sort of entity that any aggressive attorney general
> would want to pursue.  Likely they will have their hands full dealing
> with new-formed 'charities' which are attempting to make use of the
> 'charity' loophole in the do-not-call anti-telemarketing law.  Or they
> go after those pseudo-charities who pretend to represent the police or
> whatever.

The AGs  do police online charities pretty agressively. It is easy to do in
the
internet context. they will ask you to file and also ask you to pay
a penalty fee (if they have one) if you don't do that, then they
might get ugly.

The National Association of Attorney Generals (NAAG) and
the National Association of State Charities Officials (NASCO)
have been working on a Uniform Registration scheme.

http://www.tdip.com/uniform_registration.PDF

This is the Mult-State Filer Project site that has the latest information
and the states that do and do not accept the URS (you will note
that Florida is one of the states that does NOT accept the URS):

http://www.multistatefiling.org/index.html#version

You will note that a lot of states have exemptions for small
organizations (some do not).

http://www.multistatefiling.org/n_appendix.htm

The Charleston Principles are informal but are still the last word
that was passed by their (NASCO)  board in 2001 as "Advisory Guidelines"

http://www.nasconet.org/public.php?pubsec=4&curdoc=10

In section III. B. 1. b. (1) will note that an charities that has
an interactive web site for donations is considered to be
subject to state charities registrations requirements if they
are either targeting individuals in that state or have received
donations from that state on a repeated or ongoing basis.

Eventually Wikimedia must register, but is doing so today
absolutely necessary? I doubt it, but if Wikimedia starts getting
donations from a specific state it should consider filing
in that State and eventually filing in all states that have
such a requirement (the Uniform Form will make it easier to
do, but there are still the filing fees which would be a burden
for Wikimedia right now until more people donate.

The Charleston Principles are NOT law, the problem is that
the law of each state applies and different courts have
set different standards for what is within and without state
jurisdiction but chances are, for now, if one follows the
Charleston Principles the AGs of the various states will
not give Wikimedia a hard time (that is of course until
Wikimedia's contributions start going up).

Alex756