Reinforcement for Charitable Supervision in California

California law requires all organizations that hold or solicit property for charitable purposes in California to register with the California Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts (“RCT”) and provide annual reports. But according to the Attorney General’s Office, there are 52,000 charities that are delinquent in their reporting and at least 130,000 charities operating in California that have failed to register altogether.

The failure of the Attorney General to ensure compliance with the registration and reporting requirements likely has something to do with having about 12 RCT employees keeping track of 230,000 registered organizations and about 1.2 million pages filed each year.

State Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) wants to change this. He has introduced a bill that would allow the Attorney General’s office to direct approximately $7 million of the RCT registration and renewal fees to enforcement of the registration and renewal requirements.

To support his bill, Allen cited the America’s Worst Charities Report, a yearlong investigation by The Center of Investigative Reporting and Tampa Bay Times. The report found that 50 charities raised a combined $1.3 billion but spent about $1 billion of it on consultants and fundraising instead of charitable programs.

Do you think the bill will do enough to stop the worst offenders?