AP IMPACT: Some nonprofits can't touch their money

[eppur_se_muova]

By MARTHA WAGGONER – Mar 1, 2009

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina Symphony has all the money it needs. But in this economy, the orchestra isn't allowed to touch it.

The value of its endowment stands at nearly $6.9 million, a fund the symphony planned to tap this year to help pay its musicians and put on concerts. But because of the slump on Wall Street, the endowment is worth less than the original donations that created it. That means, under North Carolina law, that the money is off limits.

It's a frustrating quandary for universities, orchestras and other nonprofit organizations in two dozen states. They have the money they need to save jobs, offer scholarships and put on a solid schedule of programs, but face state laws that keep them from using any of it.

"I don't imagine the donors anticipated a situation where the market would fall so dramatically that the money would be held hostage and unable to support the symphony at all," said David Chambless Worters, the symphony's chief executive.

Rules governing how nonprofits in North Carolina and 23 other states use their endowments date to the 1970s, when most states adopted a uniform law that prohibits withdrawing money from endowments that fall below their "historic dollar value" — the money given to create the endowment, plus any later gifts.
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more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gd4rts7ZmYdGo2OaJbYzV2wR2oswD96LDN9G0

[dkf]

1. Gosh I guess it isn't only greedy assholes that own stocks huh?

Maybe we should all want the market to go up?