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New leadership for board professionals

Since 1973, the annual Workshop for Board Professional Staff has provided excellent professional development for college and university staff who support the work of the governing or foundation board. Attendance has grown steadily over the years; nearly 200 board professionals attended the two-day, pre-conference event in Phoenix this spring. The group of board professionals responsible for planning the workshop has recently expanded its role and reorganized and appointed new leadership:

  • Chair, Leadership Committee: Richard Mersereau, Bowdoin College
  • Vice Chair, Leadership Committee and Chair, Professional Development Committee: Louis Charpentier, University of Toronto
  • Secretary, Leadership Committee, Anne Shaw, University of California
  • Co-Chair, Program Committee: Lynnette Heard, University of Dayton
  • Co-Chair, Program Committee: Leticia Hernandez, California State University; and
  • Chair, Membership and Marketing Committee: Steve Frieder, Marquette University.

The Leadership Committee will meet at the University of Dayton in August to plan activities for the coming year. For more information about the Committee or the 2008 Workshop for Board Professionals, April 11-13, in Boston, please contact Merrill Schwartz or visit AGB's website.

Discussions on draft of redesigned IRS 990 to begin in September 2007

The IRS has released for public comment a discussion draft of a redesigned Form 990, Return of Organizations Exempt from Income Tax, filed by many public charities and other exempt organizations.

“The redesign of Form 990 is based on three guiding principles: enhancing transparency, promoting tax compliance, and minimizing the burden on the filing organization.

  • Enhancing transparency means providing the IRS and its stakeholders with a realistic picture of the organization and its operations, along with the basis for comparing the organization to similar organizations.
  • Promoting compliance means the form must accurately reflect the organization’s operations and use of assets, so the IRS may efficiently assess the risk of noncompliance.
  • Minimizing the burden on filing organizations means asking questions in a manner that makes it relatively easy to fill out the form, and that do not impose unwarranted additional recordkeeping or information gathering burdens to obtain and substantiate the reported information.” –IRS

Independent Sector, a coalition of corporations, foundations, and private voluntary organizations that works to strengthen America's nonprofit organizations, has posted information outlining the changes involved, the timetable and contact points for the discussion period, and an analysis of the proposed changes.

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Mark the date:
2008 Workshop
for Board
Professionals:
April 11-13, 2008, Boston, Mass.