Welcome to your daily briefing on nonprofit developments in South Carolina. Today we're covering 7 key stories including updates on south carolina nonprofit headlines, background & context. Let's dive in.
4 stories
The South Carolina Association of Counties has compiled resources to help county officials and employees search for grant funding and low-interest loans.
Nonprofit professionals in SC who partner with or seek funding through county governments can use these same resources to identify potential funding streams and financing opportunities.
The foundation is mobilizing charitable giving to build a stronger community through its available grant programs.
SC nonprofit professionals can access local funding streams that directly support their missions and community impact.
The IRS has released nonprofit tax filing data since 2013, enabling searches for organizations with details on executive compensation, revenue, expenses, and downloadable filings back to 2001.
SC nonprofit professionals can use this tool to benchmark compensation, analyze peer finances, and strengthen their own organization's transparency and grant applications.
The South Carolina Department of Education maintains a grants webpage providing information on available funding opportunities.
Nonprofit professionals in SC may find relevant grant opportunities through this state education portal to support educational programming and partnerships.
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3 stories
Donor-restricted gifts must be tracked separately and used only for the restricted purpose; using them for general operations — even with intent to "pay back" later — is a fiduciary breach and an audit finding. The most-common fact pattern: cash-flow shortage in operations, restricted-grant balance available, transfer "borrowed" with no formal repayment plan.
State attorneys general have authority over restricted-gift compliance and have pursued individual board members and executives. Auditors are required to disclose restricted-fund violations in the management letter.
The IRS-recommended COI policy requires (1) annual disclosure by all directors and key employees, (2) a process for review of any disclosed conflict, (3) recusal procedures, and (4) documentation in board minutes. Policies that have only the disclosure form without the review and recusal process do not satisfy the recommendation.
A weak COI policy is a Schedule L disclosure waiting to happen, and Schedule L disclosures correlate with future IRS examination selection.
Form 990 is required to be made public by the filing organization on request and is indexed by ProPublica and others within weeks of filing. Sections most boards underestimate: Schedule J (top-staff compensation), Schedule L (transactions with interested persons), and Schedule O (narrative explanations that "soften" other answers). Donors and reporters read these.
Items that read fine in management's narrative often read very differently in print. Pre-filing review by a non-finance board member catches optics issues that a CFO will not.
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