This conference is designed for those nonprofit leaders, professional advisors and academics who wish to stay abreast of charitable regulation issues and those who interact frequently with State charitable solicitation, registration, and enforcement officials.

The conference offers a mix of presentations by highly qualified, thought provoking government officials and regulators, CPA's, academics, and leading professional advisors. Our keynote speaker will be Dean Zerbe, former Senior Counsel and Tax Counsel to the Senate Finance Committee, who had a key role in drafting the White Paper suggesting over 200 reforms to the tax law applicable to tax exempt organizations. Lois G Lerner, Director of the IRS's Tax Exempt and Governmental Entities will provide an update on implementation of the new Form 990 and other IRS initiatives affecting tax exempt organizations. Michael W. Peregrine, Esq. will provide an update on corporate governance developments affecting nonprofits. Janet S. Greenlee, Associate Professor of Accounting at the University of Dayton and Mary Fischer, University of Texas at Tyler, will discuss their acclaimed academic study on the annual cost of theft and embezzlement within the charitable sector, and Kirsten Gronbjerg of the Center on Philanthropy, Indiana University and Rob Reich of Stanford University will examine and reflect on the common law characteristics of public charities, why we even have the sector at all, and how and to whom the sector should be accountable. Edward J. McMillan, CAE, and Jack B. Siegel, CPA, LLM, who have authored books about nonprofit internal controls and fraud will present on the topic of effective internal controls and stopping nonprofit fraud. Professor Mark Sidel of the University of Iowa Law School will discuss whether self-regulation can replace government regulation of the charitable sector, or whether it can serve as a useful adjunct to government regulation. A NASCO official will also provide an update on efforts to develop a uniform annual financial report for use in the 40 states that register soliciting charities.