Self Governance

Community Philanthropy Initiative of the European Foundation Centre | Transatlantic Community Foundation Network | New website Buergerstiftung.de

The International Journal
of Not-for-Profit Law

Volume 2, Issue 3, March 2000

There are recent developments in the field of community philanthropy that deserve the attention of IJNL’s readers. As the community foundation movement has developed in recent years, the legal structure of such foundations has been of interest to their organizers. Recent new publications, initiatives, and web sites help to provide access to information about the legal and governance aspects of community foundations.

For more information on Community Philanthropy, please refer to the Vietnam Country Report in this issue of IJNL.

Community Philanthropy Initiative of the European Foundation Centre

The Community Philanthropy Bulletin is published on a monthly basis by the Community Philanthropy Initiative (CPI) of the European Foundation Centre (EFC). CPI staff Suzanne Feurt and Silvia Piperno Beer can be reached at the EFC, 51 rue de la Concorde, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium, Tel: +32.2.512.89.38 ; Fax: +32.2.512.32.65. Send an e-mail to cpi@efc.be to become a member of the CPI listserve.

Recent issues of the CPI Bulletin have included discussions of the legal situation facing community foundations in Poland and the proposed tax law changes in the United Kingdom, which will make it easier to make donations to community foundations.

Transatlantic Community Foundation Network

The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the Bertelsmann Stiftung have begun a new initiative called the “Transatlantic Community Foundation Network,” whose first meeting was held in Dresden Germany March 12-14. The meeting was attended by 34 community foundations from 11 countries on both sides of the Atlantic. For further information about the meeting, see stiftung.bertelsmann.de.

New website Buergerstiftung.de

The Bertelsmann Foundation has established a web site in the German language where discussions about community foundations and the new Transatlantic Community Foundation Network can take place. The site contains a good deal of information about the community foundation in Germany and its structure and governance, and links are available to the governing documents of various community foundations in the Network. A moderated discussion is available, where participants can interact on such topics as the make-up of the governing bodies of a community foundation (specifically whether the mayor should be involved). Further information can be obtained by going directly to the buergerstiftung.de site.