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• Published date: 01 January 2017
• Date: 01 January 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30275

12

JANUARY 2017NONPROFIT BUSINESS ADVISOR

© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company • All rights reserved

DOI: 10.1002/nba

EMPLOYMENT LAW (continued from page 11)

News

advantage of the procedure, because she never took

it upon herself to take her complaints up the chain

of command until November 2013.

In response, McKinley emphasized that the anti-

harassment policy expressly permitted employees

to approach an offender directly to request that the

harassing conduct be discontinued. McKinley ar-

gued that she acted in accordance with the policy by

advising Moftt on multiple occasions that his com-

ments made her feel uncomfortable. She contended

that when things escalated to Moftt calling her a

“Jezebel” and suggesting that she needed to be ter-

minated, she then reported him to human resources.

EMPLOYEE WINS ➔ Judge Conrad ruled that

it would be up to a jury to decide whether McKinley

had acted reasonably in the way she tried to handle

the situation before November 2013, because the

specific wording of the anti-harassment policy

allowed employees to take matters into their own

hands.

The judge refused to grant summary judgment.

He acknowledged that, in hindsight, immediately

reporting Moftt’s inappropriate comments to upper

management might have alleviated the problem and

prevented it from escalating. He refused to conclude

that her failure to do so under the circumstances was

unreasonable as a matter of law.

[McKinley v. The Salvation Army, U.S. District

Court for the Western District of Virginia, No.

7:15CV00166, 06/14/2016]. ■

Donor-advised funds on the rise

New research from the National Philanthropic Trust

shows that donor-advised funds are indeed on the rise,

with 2015 seeing growth in all key metrics, including the

number of individual donor-advised funds, the total

grant dollars awarded from them, total contributions

made to them and total charitable assets in them.

Per the NPT’s 2016 Donor-Advised Fund Report,

total charitable assets available for grant making in all

DAFs totaled $78.64 billion, an 11.9 percent increase

over 2014 and continuing a trajectory of double-digit

growth every year since 2010.

In addition, grants from DAFs totaled a record

$14.52 billion, which is a 16.9 percent increase from

the prior year.

Contributions to DAFs totaled $22.26 billion, an

11.4 percent increase from 2014.

The total number of DAF accounts stood at 269,180

in the United States, an 11.1 percent increase from

2014, and the average size of DAF accounts reached

a record $235,727, an 8.8 percent increase over 2014.

The NPT attributed the increase to several factors.

“While the motivations for giving have stayed the

same for centuries, the methods have evolved. Today’s

donors are highly engaged in their giving,” the group

wrote on its blog. “Baby Boomers and Millennials in

particular want a close connection to their philanthro-

py and to track their charitable impact. DAFs provide

the exibility and management donors are seeking.”

Gates Foundation

launches new public charity

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has

launched a separate entity—Gates Philanthropy

Partners—that will work in tandem with the Gates

Foundation in its mission to improve the lives of the

world’s poorest by advancing progress in global health,

development and U.S. education.

Gates Philanthropy Partners is a 501(c)(3) public

charity that will accept donations of any amount from

the public. Donors’ gifts are aligned with the mission

of the Gates Foundation. Grants made by GPP are

guided by the foundation’s program strategies and

are directed to projects where additional funding can

accelerate progress on issues of inequity for all people

around the world, the foundation said.

In a statement on its website, the foundation said it

prefers and actively encourages donors to give directly

to Gates Foundation grantees. But each year it receives

unsolicited donations—some $32 million since 2000.

GPP was set up to accept and direct these donations,

and will deploy grants to Gates Foundation projects

where foundation staff believe that additional funding

could accelerate their progress.

For more information, visit http://www.gates

foundation.org. ■

For more information, visit https://www.nptrust

.org.