Overview
Laura Butzel is a partner in the firm’s Tax-Exempt Organizations Group. She advises tax-exempt, not-for-profit organizations on a broad range of operating issues, including corporate governance and fiduciary duties, joint ventures, program-related investments, structuring subsidiaries, unrelated business income tax and other tax issues, executive compensation, intellectual property and other issues. Her clients include private foundations as well as cultural, human and civil liberties, environmental, publishing, educational, and religious organizations. She also advises charitable clients on endowment issues, publishing and licensing issues, international and domestic grantmaking, lobbying, political activities, and the rules particular to private foundations, among other issues.
An active lecturer, Ms. Butzel has presented on a wide range of issues including governance and tax concerns, investment policies and procedures, intellectual property, web site development and internet issues of charitable organizations, joint ventures and political activities of charitable entities.
She serves as an officer of a number of charitable organizations and is a director of The Mertz-Gilmore Foundation and a former trustee of The John B. Pierce Laboratory and The John B. Pierce Foundation, and of the Shelburne Museum.
SPEECHES
Lecturer at programs including:
Association of the Bar of the City of New York – Web Site Issues for Not-for-Profits
Association of the Bar of the City of New York – Political Activities of Not-for-Profits
Association of the Bar of the City of New York – Joint Ventures between For-Profits and Not-for-Profits
Council on Foundations – The Implications of Sarbanes-Oxley for Not-for-Profit Organizations – Council on Foundations' Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada
Council on Foundations – Intellectual Property Concerns for Not-for-Profit Organizations, Council on Foundations' Annual Meeting, San Diego, California
General Counsel of Private Foundations Group at The Ford Foundation – The Implications of Sarbanes-Oxley for Not-for-Profit Organizations
BNY Mellon, 2010 Foundation and Endowment Symposium, Recent Developments in Governance and Disclosure
Estate Planner Day, 2010, Structuring Private Foundations as Corporation or Trust: An Exploration of Choice of Entity.