The Charity Law Association of Australia and New Zealand (CLAANZ) will host a webinar titled Donor Advised Funds & Community Foundations: An Asia-Pacific Comparison of Public Philanthropy Intermediaries on either March 12, 2024 at 11 am AWST / 2 pm AEDT / 4 pm NZDT. Here is the description:
Please consider joining Professor Ian Murray, Chair of CLAANZ, in conversation with Professor Masayuki Tamaruya, Professor of Law at The University of Tokyo, for this special webinar.
Over the last few decades many developed countries have seen a desire on the part of a greater range of donors for more sophisticated and strategic forms of giving. This reflects a range of factors, including changes in social expectations, improved data and data-tools (such as Candid, Tencent Charity and the creation of public charity registers) and the greater availability of institutional forms such as foundations or quasi-foundations. In the United States, such factors are linked to an explosion in the creation of ‘donor advised funds’ (DAFs); being management accounts within a public charity in relation to which the donor can advise their preference for how funds should ultimately be distributed. DAFs appear to offer many of the benefits of a private foundation, without the cost of establishing a new foundation, whilst also being subject to less onerous regulation. Unsurprisingly, this has caused significant consternation about DAFs. For instance, donors enjoy immediate tax breaks while sitting on large sums of money which are not disbursed in a timely manner.
Much comparative work centres on the United States. However, that is not necessarily because there is any less of a desire for institutional support for strategic giving in other jurisdictions. Indeed, as will be discussed, in many jurisdictions, community foundations have prime place in meeting these desires. Accordingly, this presentation takes a very different cross-section, comparing the presence and use of public philanthropic intermediaries such as DAF sponsors in the Asia-Pacific (focussing on Australian and Japan). In addition to providing a comparative account of public philanthropic intermediary regulation, the key contribution it seeks to make is to consider the way in which the advantages and disadvantages of public philanthropic intermediaries might suit them to the contexts of these different jurisdictions and therefore help predict whether they are likely to be a significant feature of the philanthropic landscape and whether they are likely to cause the worries that have surfaced in the United States.
Originally published at charitylaw.nd.edu.