NYPMIFA Revisited: A Summary Incorporating the Attorney General’s Recent Guidance

On March 17, 2011, the Charities Bureau of the New York Attorney General's Office issued long-awaited guidance on the New York Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act ("NYPMIFA"), which was enacted in September 2010. NYPMIFA updates New York endowment law and the law governing the management and investment of institutional funds held by organizations formed under New York law.

Since NYPMIFA's passage, many in the nonprofit organizations community have raised questions about how to interpret key provisions of the law. The Attorney General's guidance provides the office's interpretation of various aspects of the new statute.

Salient features of the Attorney General's guidance include the following interpretations of NYPMIFA:

• Statutory notice must be sent to available endowment fund donors who executed gift instruments prior to September 17, 2010, unless either the endowment fund was funded by gifts made as part of an institutional solicitation or specific terms in the gift instrument render the notice provision inapplicable.
  
• After an organization has sent the required notice, it may appropriate from the endowment fund during the 90-day period in which the donor may return the notice.
  
• If a group of endowment funds is "similarly situated," an organization may appropriate from them as a group rather than on a fund-by-fund basis. However, an organization "should develop written procedures for determining when a group of funds is similarly situated for this purpose."

Here is our updated summary of NYPMIFA, which incorporates selected aspects of the Attorney General's guidance: Click Here