La guitare de Monte Pittman signée par Madonna pour les enchères de la Fondation Dreams (Rêves).

From Monte Pittman on Twitter:

http://www.dreamfoundation.org/events/11th-annual-celebrations-of-dreams-gala … If attending, I donated my personal MPS (played at the Super Bowl!) & Madonna signed it for the auction @JarrellGuitars

11th Annual Celebrations of Dreams Gala
Friday November 16, 2012 5:00 PM - 11:45 PM
Bacara Resort & Spa 8301 Hollister Ave.
Santa Barbara, CA 93117

Read more at: Dream Foundation

Monte Pittman at the Super Bowl

Madonna soutient "The Malala Fund".

From Madonna.com News:

November 10, 2012
Today is Malala Day

On October 9, 2012, 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan was shot in the head by the Taliban. It was a failed attempt to silence her - and her leading voice for girls' education and the right of all children to go to school.
The Malala Fund was established for the family and Malala to direct once she is well to work together with supporters of the cause, including the United Nations Foundation and Girl Up.
For more info, please visit Malalafund.org.

Madonna dit que sa charité projette 10 écoles au Malawi.

January 30, 2012 10:20 AM

(AP)  NEW YORK — Nearly six years after it was created, Madonna's Raising Malawi charity is set to break ground on the construction of schools in the impoverished country, but they will be run by the local community, not the superstar's organization.
According to organizers, work on the first school will start on March 30 in the Kasungu area, about 80 miles from the capital of Lilongwe, and all of the schools should be built by June 2013. Raising Malawi is providing $300,000 to the non-governmental organization buildOn to develop the schools. They'll serve about 1,000 boys and girls in the southern African nation.
"This remains a very big priority in my life and I am excited that with the help of buildOn we can maintain our ongoing commitment to move forward efficiently," Madonna said in a statement provided to The Associated Press.
Raising Malawi had originally intended to build all-girls schools that the organization would run. But it faced several obstacles in its goal, including complaints from some local farmers that they had been moved off land that Raising Malawi intended to use for its mission. Raising Malawi also had difficulty getting title to the land and there were concerns about the high costs of construction.
The new plan calls for "simple structures" that will be more practical and better serve Raising Malawi's original mission, said Trevor Neilson, who is helping to direct the project as partner of the Global Philanthropy Group. The approach will allow the program to serve twice as many children as before, Madonna said.
"I have learned a great deal over the last few years and feel so much more confident that we can reach out goals to educate children in Malawi, especially young girls, in a much more efficient and practical way," she said. Madonna has adopted two children from Malawi.
BuildOn has already built more than 50 schools in Malawi and 427 schools worldwide.
"For schools to be successful, they need to have community ownership and leadership," Neilson said in an interview Friday. "Raising Malawi shouldn't be running schools in Malawi. Local communities in Malawi should be running those schools, so that's a big part of the shift."
BuildOn has been working in Malawi for almost 20 years, said spokeswoman Carrie Pena. The organization works closely with the community, and locals even volunteer the labor to build the schools, according to Pena.
"It's absolutely a community-owned school," she said.
Neilson praised Madonna for sticking with her plan to build schools for Malawi's children despite several setbacks for the star, who is the director of the new movie "W.E.," out next week, and is this year's Super Bowl performer. Madonna brought in Global Philanthropy to work with Raising Malawi more than a year ago and removed the involvement of the Kabbalah Centre. She has practiced Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism.
"When the previous management team had those problems, I think a lot of people thought Madonna would give up," Neilson said "It would have been understandable, but instead she's going to reaching twice as many kids."

Madonna va payer 96 000£ aux salariés du Malawi virés.

From Mail On Sunday:

Madonna's £96K payout to sacked Malawi workers after her plans to build school were abandoned
By Mail On Sunday Reporter
Last updated at 10:25 PM on 14th January 2012

Madonna has agreed to pay almost £100,000 to a group of charity workers who sued the star after her plans to build a school in Malawi were abandoned last year.
The singer, who has an estimated fortune of more than £400 million, was facing a court case to answer claims of unfair dismissal and unpaid wages from eight charity workers who lost their jobs when plans for her Raising Malawi Academy, a 500-pupil girls’ school, collapsed last March.
But the case, which was due to be heard at Malawi’s Industrial Relations Court in Blantyre, was averted at the last minute after the two sides reached an out-of-court settlement last month, with Madonna agreeing to pay £96,000.
Court documents relating to the deal make clear that the 53-year-old star, who has two adopted children from Malawi, does not acknowledge guilt. The papers also reveal that the claimants were expected to sign confidentiality agreements. The claimants included the charity’s former chief executive, Anjimile Oponyo, a one-time UN employee who was hand-picked by Madonna to run the academy.
A lawyer for the group said yesterday that his clients had not yet received their payouts. Wapona Kita said: ‘The money was supposed to be paid there and then but it is over four weeks later and no money has been paid.
‘I have tried to contact Madonna’s lawyers in Malawi but their response is they are having extreme difficulty transferring the money from the US.
‘I cannot communicate with Madonna. I can only communicate with her lawyers in Malawi.  But people here feel they are being played.’
Last night, a spokeswoman for Madonna declined to comment.

Madonna va assister à la charité de la Foundation Naked Heart - Paris, 6 juillet 2011.

Fashion Scoops
Couture Week Preview...
Ferragamo Is Gotham Bound...
Posted Thursday June 2, 2011
From WWD Issue 06/02/2011

PLAY TIME: Couture week in July promises parties fantastical enough to rival the high fashions on the runway. Natalia Vodianova has tapped French production wizard Alexandre de Betak to create a transporting decor for her White Fairy Tale Love Ball, to be held at Valentino’s spectacular Château de Wideville on the outskirts of Paris. Anne Hathaway, Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna and Kate Winslet are among VIPs expected at the event, all in benefit of the Naked Heart Foundation, a charity that aids underprivileged and special-needs children in Russia. To date, the foundation has built 60 play parks in 44 Russian cities.
The centerpiece of the Paris night is a fashion show of more than 40 custom-designed dresses, all inspired by fairy tales, that will be auctioned off that evening by Christie’s. Participating designers range from Agent Provacateur and Chanel to Vivienne Westwood and Yves Saint Laurent. Monies are also raised via sales of tickets and tables for the dinner gala. Guests are to be treated with a surprise concert and go home with a limited edition photo book by Paolo Roversi featuring Vodianova modeling each of the exclusive designer dresses.

Source: WWD.

The White Fairy Tale Love Ball
25 May, 2011 · Author: Diana

Here’s our first look at the illustrations Natalia has prepared for her upcoming White Fairy Tale Love Ball, which will be held July 6 in Widewille Castle, owned by fashion designer Valentino Garavani, near Paris. For this event, Natalia asked forty-two international couturiers and designers to each create a fairytale dress to be auctioned in aid of her Naked Heart Foundation. All the dresses were photographed by renowned photographer Paolo Roversi in a special photo shoot modeled by Natalia herself. Shots from the photoshoot have already been given to various magazines, including Vogue, and will appear in future issues. For more information about the event, visit nakedheart.org.

Source: Natalia Web, Your Source for Natalia Vodianova.

Ces bottes sont faites pour Parler.

Let's Discuss: Madonna's Signed Chanel Boots On Auction For Lourdes' High School Fundraiser
Posted 09/05/2011 by Mary H.K. Choi in Accessories

In most high schools, fundraisers mean a bake sale, or a rummage sale or some sort of well-meaning function that involves a spaghetti dinner in chafing dishes with wee little burners or a car wash that in actuality only seems to happen in movies when you need a plot device where young, nubile girls get sodden in some weirdly inappropriate way and bad stuff happens. At New York's LaGuardia high school, a super-artsy, mega-hard-to-get-into institution (a.k.a. The "Fame" School), where none other than Lourdes Leon matriculates, you get stuff like this.
Look, don't get it twisted. There is no way EVER that I would besmirch my own mother this close to mother's day by comparing her to Madonna because, hi, apples and oranges (to where my mother is the apple [OF MY EYE] and a marvelous Fuji one at that [go Asia!]), but the fact that Lourdes not only has a clothing line of her very own called, Material Girl, with a beautiful model in Kelly Osbourne and a campaign shot by the unparalleled photographer, Brooke Nipar, but gets to have her mom donate VINTAGE CHANEL OVER-THE-KNEE BLACK AND WHITE SPAT BOOTS THAT ARE SIGNED BY MADONNA BECAUSE YOUR FRIGGIN' MOTHER IS MADONNA, is a little intense.
The auction will continue for the next two days, bids are presently at $2860.00, and the proceeds will benefit after-school programs, individual student grants and supplies. Man, if I were appointed as the lady in charge of the money, those supplies would be MOAR SHOES and them ends would not proceed anywhere. AMIRITE??!!! I don't know. I just made myself sort of sad with the help of the Internet. I really could teach a class on the subject.

Source: MTV Style.

Madonna at the Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on May 2.
 

Le Centre de la Cabbale de LA sous enquête du fisc.

– Fri May 6, 12:51 am ET

LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles-based spiritual organization whose followers include Madonna and other celebrities is the focus of a federal tax evasion probe.
The Los Angeles Times reports Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service is investigating whether nonprofit funds from the Kabbalah Centre's estimated $260 million in assets were used as a piggy bank by the family that runs it.
For more than 40 years, the Berg family has controlled the spiritual group that preaches a little-known strain of Jewish mysticism.
The Bergs and the Kabbalah Centre are named in subpoenas as a subject of a grand jury probe alongside Madonna's Raising Malawi charity.
The charities say they are cooperating with the New York-based investigation.
A call to the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles was not immediately returned Thursday night.
Madonna abandoned plans to build a girls school in Malawi earlier this year because of logistical problems. Her charity Raising Malawi is also cooperating in the investigation.
The federal investigation follows several lawsuits about the Centre's finances. One ongoing case alleges the center wrongly cashed in on $2.9 million in a $68-million Ponzi scheme.
In another suit an heiress accused the Bergs and other Kabbalah Centre associates of bilking her out of $1.3 million.
A former member alleges she was pushed to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in an Orange County branch and a homeschooling program that never came to fruition. The Kabbalah Centre has called the suits meritless.

Source: AP.

The Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles is the focus of an IRS investigation into tax evasion
Two charities linked to Madonna are also being scrutinized. The center has attracted A-list celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow.
By Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times
May 6, 2011

The Kabbalah Centre, the Los Angeles-based spiritual organization that mingles ancient Jewish mysticism with the glamour of its celebrity devotees, is the focus of a federal tax evasion investigation probing, among other things, the finances of two charities connected to Madonna, the center's most famous adherent.
Sources familiar with the investigation said the criminal division of the IRS is looking into whether nonprofit funds were used for the personal enrichment of the Berg family, which has controlled the Kabbalah Centre for more than four decades, a period in which it expanded from one school of a little-known strain of Judaism to a global brand with A-list followers like Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow and assets that may top $260 million.
Those cooperating with the IRS include representatives of one of Madonna's charities, Raising Malawi. The nonprofit is named in subpoenas as a subject of the grand jury probe alongside the Bergs and Kabbalah Centre organizations despite having cut its ties with the center this spring.
"We have tried to provide as much information as we can as quickly as possible to the people who are investigating and are very actively cooperating in every way we can," said Trevor Neilson of Global Philanthropy Group, a consulting firm now managing Raising Malawi.
In a statement in response to questions about the probe, the Kabbalah Centre acknowledged that it and one of its charities, Spirituality for Kids, "have received subpoenas from the government concerning tax-related issues."
"The Centre and SFK intend to work closely with the IRS and the government, and are in the process of providing responsive information to the subpoenas," according to the statement.
The IRS and the U.S. Attorney's office in New York declined to comment. People with knowledge of the investigation said it began last year and is playing out on two coasts. A federal grand jury in Manhattan, where the Kabbalah Centre has a large branch and real estate holdings, is gathering evidence there, according to the subpoenas. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, where the center is headquartered on Robertson Boulevard, a team of IRS agents dispatched from the agency's New York criminal division is interviewing people connected to the organization, said individuals familiar with the agents' activities.
Among the items that investigators have reviewed, according to one source, is an August 2010 email in which a former chief financial officer of the center complained that he had been fired for pointing out financial improprieties and warned that the center was in danger of "committing suicide."
"I recently uncovered instances of income tax fraud at the Kabbalah Centre — instances which could bankrupt several of the directors involved … this is very serious business," the former CFO, Nicholas Vakkur, wrote in an email that circulated among high-level officials at the center. "I have little choice but to cooperate with the IRS and bring down the entire Kabbalah Centre," Vakkur wrote, adding a plea that "someone in authority" try to "reason" with center Chief Executive Karen Berg.
Berg's husband, Philip, 81, was appointed the head rabbi or rav in 1969, but since he suffered a debilitating stroke in 2004, his wife, 68, has run the Kabbalah Centre with the help of the couple's two sons, Michael, 37, and Yehuda, 38. The family has close ties with Madonna, whose decision to study at the center in 1996 put kabbalah and its distinctive red-string bracelets on the pop culture map and led to a period of enormous growth. In addition to individual members of the Berg family, subpoenas reviewed by The Times list various charities and for-profit businesses overseen by them as subjects of the investigation. The subpoenas do not indicate that Madonna personally is being investigated but do name two nonprofits she has championed: Spirituality for Kids and Raising Malawi.
The singer served as chairwoman of the board for Spirituality for Kids, an educational program founded by Karen Berg, and donated more than $600,000 to the cause, according to tax filings. Raising Malawi was an outgrowth of Spirituality for Kids that the singer cofounded with Michael Berg. The charity announced this spring that it was scrapping its plan to build a girls' school in Malawi, a venture in which it had already invested $3.8 million, according to Neilson. The decision received wide media coverage and criticism in Malawi. Madonna, who Global Philanthropy Group said put about $11 million of her own money into the charity, replaced Michael Berg as CEO and moved Raising Malawi's offices out of the Kabbalah Centre in March.
Madonna's publicist did not return messages seeking comment. Neilson said Raising Malawi had retained legal counsel separate from the Kabbalah Centre to represent the organization in the IRS investigation.
The Kabbalah Centre is far and away the most well-known proponent of kabbalah, an esoteric Jewish movement that traces its roots to the Zohar, a holy book followers believe was written by a rabbi 2,000 years ago to explain the mysteries of the universe. The center, according to its literature, began in Jerusalem in 1922 and now has outlets in 31 countries and claims 4,000 regular participants in its services and programs globally. Mainstream Jewish leaders have criticized the center on a number of fronts, including its de-emphasis of the religion in courting new members, an approach the center touts in its literature: "One of the nice things about studying Kabbalah is that it doesn't require you to leave your current faith or religious path."
Investigators looking into the center's finances face a complex organizational structure involving more than a dozen separate nonprofits and business entities with connections to the Bergs, according to public business records and sources familiar with the workings of Kabbalah. The total assets of the center are unclear because the parent organization, Kabbalah Centre International, has tax-exempt status as a church and is not required to make public its tax filings. A former CFO, Nicholas Boord Jr., who left the center in 2009, wrote in a resume posted online that the center had annual revenue of $60 million and assets that included a $200-million real estate portfolio and a $60-million investment fund.
According to a 1993 filing seeking tax-exempt status for the center, neither Karen nor Philip Berg receive salaries for their leadership roles. In those documents, signed by Karen Berg, the center said that she and her husband as well as other clerical staff "derive their subsistence from the meals and lodging and care provided to them by the organization's facilities." The Bergs live in Beverly Hills, in homes a few blocks from the headquarters that were purchased for them and owned by the Kabbalah Centre, according to property records and court documents.
The investigation comes as a handful of lawsuits are raising other questions about the Kabbalah Centre's financial dealings. In a New York bankruptcy court, a trustee sorting out a $68-million Ponzi scheme has alleged that the center, an investor, was paid $2.9 million in "fictitious profits" and demanded the money be returned. Settlement talks in that case are ongoing, according to court filings.
In two other suits filed earlier this year, an heiress accused the Bergs and others connected to the Kabbalah Centre of defrauding her of about $1.3 million. Courtenay Geddes, a former member of the center, alleged that staff members pushed her to invest with an official at the Orange County branch who absconded with more than $800,000 and was later revealed to be a convicted felon. In a second suit, she claimed that a homeschooling program she funded with a half-million-dollar donation never came to fruition despite assurances from Yehuda Berg and others that it was under development.
In a stinging February filing that referred to the Bergs as "charlatans," her attorney, Alain Bonavida, wrote that the center and its related organizations "exist primarily to enrich" the Bergs and their associates and predicted that any IRS review "will result in a revocation of said nonprofit status as well as various penalties, fines and likely criminal prosecution" of the family.
In a statement, the Kabbalah Centre called the allegations in the suit "meritless" and said it "intends to defend the case vigorously."

Source: Los Angeles Times.

Madonna-Linked Kabbalah Charity Faces IRS Inquiry
May 6, 2011, 10:00 am

The Internal Revenue Service is investigating the finances of the Kabbalah Centre, the nonprofit spiritual organization that worked with Madonna on her failed effort to build schools in Malawi, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Two charities linked to Madonna, one of the Los Angeles-based organization’s numerous celebrity adherents, are part of the investigation, which sources told The Times seeks to determine if the center’s funds were used to enrich the Bergs, its founding family.
In a statement, the center and an affiliated charity, Spirituality for Kids, said it is cooperating with IRS investigators, as did Trevor Neilson, a donor adviser whose Global Philanthropy Group now manages Madonna’s Raising Malawi charity.
Raising Malawi cuts its ties with the Kabbalah Centre this year after ending its effort to build an academy for impoverished girls in the African country after spending $3.8-million on the project without breaking ground.

Source: Philanthropy Today.

Madonna paye la scolarité de son enfant avec ses bottes.

May 4, 2011 4:44 PM
Charity

Brian Moylan —Sure, Madonna created a whole (possibly shady) charity to raise money for schools in Malawi, but do you know how she raises money for daughter Lourdes Leon's schooling? By selling her old Chanel boots.
That's right, Madonna donated a pair of boots to a charity auction at Lola's future alma mater, LaGuardia Arts High School, better known as the Fame school. The boots are just one of the hundreds of items up for sale to benefit the public school. If you don't want to knock Madonna's boots, you can get tickets to Shakespeare in the Park, Fashion Week, or Saturday Night Live. And you can help performing kids, our nation's most endangered resource.
While we're sure the donation of an old pair of boots is very generous, can't Madonna just, you know, write a check for the $2.6 million that has been cut from LaGuardia High's budget over the last two years?

Source: Gawker.

Madonna donne des bottes aux enchères de LaGuardia High School.

May 4, 2011 8:46pm
The celeb-heavy alumni list at LaGuardia High School makes for a Fame-centric school auction.
By Leslie Albrecht
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

UPPER WEST SIDE — An Upper West Side school is selling the chance to walk in Madonna's shoes — and a shot at immortality.
The Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, better known as the "Fame" high school, is auctioning off a pair of boots once worn by Madonna as part of its annual school fundraiser.
Madonna's daughter, Lourdes, is a student in LaGuardia's drama department. The mega-star donated the white thigh-high Chanel boots to the auction.
"We're hoping to get a lot a money for those boots," said principal Kim Bruno. "We're so indebted to her. The auction raises money that we desperately need."
Madonna's used footwear isn't the only brush with fame on the list of auction items. With an alumni roster that reads like a Hollywood Hall of Fame, LaGuardia's auction offers a number of celeb-centric items, said parent Jane Rosen, the school's live auction chair.
Novelist Jonathan Lethem, also a LaGuardia graduate, is selling off what's billed as "immortality" — the chance to become a character in his next novel. The winning bidder will see their name appear in Lethem's next work, though the author gets to decide whether the character will be the hero or a minor player.
Lethem, the author of "Motherless Brooklyn," reportedly attended LaGuardia to follow in his painter father's footsteps, but ended up starting his writing career there, publishing his own zine and writing a 125-page unpublished novel.
Adrien Grenier, the actor alum who made it big on the HBO show "Entourage," donated two packages.
One is a three-hour acting workshop with Grenier and his LaGuardia acting teacher, Harry Shifman. The other is a three-night stay at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, lunch with Grenier at his favorite Los Angeles restaurant, Little Dom's, and tickets to the "Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson."
Celebrity designer Isaac Mizrahi, a 1980 LaGuardia alum, donated a behind-the-scenes tour of his studio. Alum Paul Stanley, a 1970 graduate who went on to front the band KISS, donated signed KISS memorabilia.
LaGuardia's auction raised $140,000 last year and organizers hope this year's will top $200,000, Rosen said.
The money goes to shore up programs that have been slashed by citywide school budget cuts.
"The budget cuts have been horrendous," Rosen said. "(The auction) helps make up for a host of things — the college office, the music department, the dance department, piano tuning, anything that’s needed."
LaGuardia's live and silent auction is scheduled for 6 p.m. Saturday, May 7 at the school, 100 Amsterdam Avenue at West 65th Street. Alum Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, will perform.

Source: DNAinfo.

At LaGuardia High School, Madonna's Boots Replace The Bake Sale
By Jen Carlson in Arts and Events on May 4, 2011 5:11 PM

Forget bake sales (they're illegal anyway), when you've got Madonna as a mom you can raise funds for your school in a much more fashionable (and low-calorie) way: by raiding her closet! Madonna has donated a pair of her Chanel boots to her daughter Lourdes's school, the LaGuardia Arts High School in Manhattan. They'll become part of an annual auction to raise money, joining about 100 other items (including a private "sex therapy session"—donated by someone's parent? Embarrassing!).
The starting bid on Madonna's boots is $1,000, and the auction ends on May 12th. All proceeds go directly to programs and materials for the students. One day, if she can reproduce, Lady Gaga is going to make a high school a lot of money.

Source: Gothamist.

Madonna donates Chanel boots to LaGuardia Arts High School auction: Daughter Lourdes is a student
BY David Hinckley
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, May 4th 2011, 10:43 AM

These boots are made for auctioning.
To help soften the impact of budget cuts at LaGuardia Arts High School, where her daughter Lourdes is a student, Madonna has donated a pair of signed Chanel boots for the annual online auction that starts tomorrow.
Hundreds of other items are available in the auction, ranging from a theater tickers to a tour of Tommy Hilfiger headquarters to sailing in the Hamptons and a one-hour private "sex therapy session."
Most of these can be viewed at www.laguardiahs.org/auction.
The boots by themselves will be auctioned Thursday at www.gottahaverockandroll.com.
The auction runs for a week and also includes an "Auction Gala" at the school on Saturday night with a performance by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary.
Like other city schools, LaGuardia has been socked with budget cuts it says have topped $2.6 million over the last two years.
One of nine specialized high schools in the city system, LaGuardia's alumni include Jennifer Aniston, Liza Minnelli and Adrian Grenier.

Source: NY Daily News.

Photo of the Chanel boots via Gotta Have Rock & Roll.

New York projette une réforme de la loi sur les charités.

New York plans charity law reform to cut red tape
By Michelle Nichols – Tue Apr 26, 3:50 pm ET
Editing by Mark Egan and Eric Walsh.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced plans on Tuesday to reform cumbersome laws and regulations burdening the state's charities in a bid to ease what he called a looming funding crisis.
Schneiderman said he would form a working group of nonprofit, government and labor representatives to develop proposals and recommend reforms. He also appealed to New York City's corporate leaders to take a role.
New York's nonprofits employ 500,000 people -- up to 18 percent of the state's workforce -- while finance and insurance companies in New York City employ about 341,000 people.
"New York's statutory requirements governing charities are so burdensome that one leading not-for-profit lawyer has stated that it is essentially malpractice to advise a not-for-profit client to incorporate in New York," Schneiderman told the nonprofit Association for a Better New York.
There are about 2 million nonprofits in the United States. Of that number, just 20,000 receive about 85 percent of the $300 billion in U.S. donations made annually, experts said, while many smaller charities rely on city or state funding.
"The economy may have bottomed out in many areas, but for New York's not-for-profits, the effects of cuts at every level of government have yet to be felt," Schneiderman said.
Schneiderman told members of ABNY that tight federal and state budgets could mean "a looming crisis in this incredibly important sector."
Many U.S. states are facing financial hardships stemming from the U.S. recession of 2007-2009, which has limited their budgets for law enforcement and other services.
U.S. tax authorities grant groups charitable status, exempting them from taxes, but most laws governing nonprofits are at state level from the attorney-general.
Schneiderman said that if a charity received funding from six city or state agencies it could be subject to six separate audits. Nonprofits in New York with revenues of more than $250,000 also have to conduct annual audits, while in other states such as California the threshold is $2 million.
"We can be as tough or tougher on policing fraud without imposing unnecessary burdens," Schneiderman said. "But in hard economic times, we can't afford to force (charities) to spend 15 or 20 percent of their resources on compliance costs."
Experts said last week that U.S. authorities, particularly in cash-strapped states, have not devoted enough resources to policing nonprofit groups. High-profile charities run by U.S. singer Madonna and best-selling author Greg Mortenson have this year been involved in controversies.
The Human Services Council, which represents human service nonprofit groups in New York, said it was pleased that Schneiderman had recognized the economic contribution of the state's nonprofit sector.
"We are looking forward to partnering with him on efforts to strengthen these critical organizations," the council said.
Doug White, of New York University's Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising, said the proposals by Schneiderman were "a start" as "the reporting requirements are far too onerous and we should have a higher ceiling."

Source: Reuters.

Weak enforcement of rules on U.S. charities: experts
By Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK | Wed Apr 20, 2011 6:07pm EDT
Editing by Mark Egan and Cynthia Osterman.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Authorities in the United States, particularly in cash-strapped states, have not devoted enough resources to policing nonprofit groups like those involved in recent philanthropy controversies, experts say.
U.S. tax authorities grant groups charitable status, which exempts them from taxes, and require most to file annual informational tax returns, but experts say the main source of regulation faced by nonprofit groups is at state level from the attorney-general.
"The problem is that very few states have put the resources they should into this part of the attorney general's activities and the quality of regulation ... varies," said Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor of public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University.
Best-selling author Greg Mortenson was accused by television program "60 Minutes" this week of misusing money given by donors, who include President Barack Obama, to his charitable organization Central Asia Institute. The New York Times reported last month that singer Madonna had ousted the board of her Raising Malawi charity due to mismanagement.
Many U.S. states are facing financial hardships stemming from the U.S. recession of 2007-2009, which has limited their budgets for law enforcement and other services.
There are about 2 million nonprofits in the United States. Of that number, just 20,000 receive about 85 percent of the $300 billion in U.S. donations made annually, experts said.
Mortenson, whose charity received $100,000 of Obama's $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize award, has denied any wrongdoing and Madonna has said that her group was not under investigation.
Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, who is responsible for overseeing the Central Asia Institute, said he will investigate concerns raised that the charity spends more promoting the importance of constructing schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is spends to build them.
"We've kept our rules relatively loose for charities in the United States," Lenkowsky said. "The reason being that our philosophy is that we would like to see lots of private initiatives that aim to serve a public interest."
HIGHER FRAUD RATE
Tax authorities reject very few applications by groups wanting to become charities, but making it more difficult would raise concerns about what criteria would be used to determine a nonprofit and could hinder efforts by groups to do good.
There are several independent charity watchdogs such as Charity Navigator and the American Institute for Philanthropy, where donors can get advice about larger nonprofit groups.
But their views can differ. The institute wrote a critical report about Mortenson's Central Asia Institute, while the Navigator gave it a top four star rating and then added a donor advisory warning when concerns about the group were raised.
"The vast majority of donors are looking for information that is readily available; they don't have a lot of time to do research for their charitable giving," said Ken Berger, chief executive of Charity Navigator.
"We're trying to oversee what is basically a $2 trillion part of the American economy -- one out of every 10 jobs -- 10 percent of GDP, and we are a very small operation," he said. "Creating further regulation would not be viable unless we get serious about enforcing existing law more rigorously."
Research shows that theft in the nonprofit sector accounts for 13 percent of annual donations, or about twice the rate of fraud in the for-profit sector, said Mark Kramer, co-founder of nonprofit consulting firm FSG and author of "Do More Than Give: The 6 Practices of Donors Who Change the World."
"In the for-profit sector, the line between what is illegal and what is merely bad judgment is clearly defined: Madoff committed fraud and is in jail," Kramer said.
"When one takes on the moral weight of running a charity, however, the rules are less clear," he said. "Unlike the for-profit sector, the scandal doesn't depend on whether something is illegal -- merely whether it sounds bad."
Kramer said donors tend to focus on funding good causes rather than judging charities by their results -- an approach which creates greater opportunities for mismanagement.

Source: Reuters.