FEATURED ARTICLES BY JESS BIRKEN, ESQ

2/3/2025· Nonprofit Organizations

New Legislation Could Threaten Nonprofit Tax-Exempt Status

By: Jess Birken, Esq

In January 2025, there’s a bill making its way through the Senate that has nonprofit leaders concerned – and for good reason. The Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act seems straightforward and easy to support, right?

12/10/2024· Nonprofit Organizations

Understanding Nonprofit Mergers

By: Jess Birken, Esq

Sometimes I work with nonprofits that are considering merging with one (or more!) other nonprofit groups. Mergers can be a happy thing, but they can also come out of one organization being stressed to the point of needing support. Sometimes it's necessary and very emotional.

9/5/2024· Nonprofit Organizations

TikTok Activism Explained: The Heritage Foundation and IRS Form 13909

By: Jess Birken, Esq

If you’ve spent any time on your TikTok For You page or YouTube Recommendations page, you may have run across some videos about how to shut down the Heritage Foundation via the IRS. Not sure what I’m talking about? Here’s the rundown:

11/28/2023· Nonprofit Organizations

5 Rules For Revising Nonprofit Bylaws

By: Jess Birken, Esq

For most small nonprofits, the bylaws is a document that’s been sitting in a drawer gathering dust for 10 years. Or they’ve been revised 100 times to rearrange the same exact wording over and over again without making any important, substantial change.

9/6/2023· Nonprofit Organizations

Nonprofit Governance: How to Structure A New Nonprofit Organization

By: Jess Birken, Esq

When starting a new nonprofit, most founders are focused on their mission. Who are they going to be? What kind of work will they do? What impact are they going to make? But those aren’t the only things nonprofit founders need to decide. They also need to decide on the structure of the nonprofit and how it will function, too.

9/27/2022· Nonprofit Organizations

Nonprofit Scams: Exempt Status And What 501(c)(3) Really Means

By: Jess Birken, Esq

Here’s the thing: I wish my clients understood that a nonprofit's public charity status is NOT everything. It might be necessary and important, sure. It helps communicate to donors that the nonprofit is a public charity....But it’s certainly not the end-all, be-all of a successful nonprofit.

8/12/2022· Nonprofit Organizations

Nonprofit Board Member Removal: A Dilemma For The National Endowment For Democracy

By: Jess Birken, Esq

Working with nonprofit organizations, I deal with a LOT of people problems. And it makes sense, right? When you ask a group of people passionate about a cause (aka, the board of directors) to come together to make collective decisions…disagreements and confrontations are inevitable.

4/28/2022· Nonprofit Organizations

Feeding Our Future Nonprofit Defrauds Government

By: Jess Birken, Esq

Feeding Our Future (FOF) was a Minnesota food assistance nonprofit that was awarded millions in federal grant funds in the past few years. FOF passed those funds through to other small organizations and businesses to provide food to children, primarily BIPOC and immigrant children in the Twin Cities and beyond.

9/28/2021· Nonprofit Organizations

Nonprofit Conflicts: Succession Lessons From The Jeopardy Host Fiasco

By: Jess Birken, Esq

So, what does this have to do with nonprofits, you ask? Well, as a lawyer for nonprofits, I've seen lots of organizations go through the process of selecting new leaders – and not all of them do it right, especially when an insider is involved. This Jeopardy host situation reminded me of those cases.

2/19/2021· Nonprofit Organizations

Nonprofit Dissolution: What Do You Need To Know

By: Jess Birken, Esq

Dissolution can be a happy occasion (yay, we accomplished our mission!) or it can be very sad and emotional. But no matter what brings a nonprofit to that point, the decision to dissolve is a big one. And, to the surprise of some folks, that decision is just the very beginning of what can be a very long process