Partnership Agreement Signed

At the July 2021 board meeting, the board reviewed the changes that had been made to the Partnership Agreement that the Fish and Wildlife Service now requires Friends groups to sign in order for their refuges to continue their relationship with Friends.

A motion to sign the revised partnership agreement was approved. The agreement has now been signed by all parties.

Through the combined efforts of the 200+ Friends groups around the nation, the revisions to the original agreement were adequate to address our primary reservations. In summary:

1. The initial requirement to deposit funds received by Friends on the refuge property into a government account, rather than our own Friends account was modified. Unrestricted funds and membership dues will continue to stay in Friends account. Also, the Refuge will have to report to Friends on how it uses any funds Friends does deposit in their government account.
2. The initial requirement that Friends mission be exclusively to support a refuge was modified to say that Friends mission must include supporting a refuge.
3. The initial requirements to report to the refuge quarterly and in detail about Friends revenues and expenditures so the refuge could monitor them was modified both as to what will be reported and the purpose of the reporting. Friends could lose its nonprofit status if it allowed an outside agency to direct or influence its uses of member dues and contributions,
4. The initial requirement that all assets would be turned over to the Fish and Wildlife Service if the Friends dissolved or if the partnership agreement were terminated by either party was modified to say only funds that were designated by donors to be used by the refuge would be turned over. Although our Friends group does not have an endowment, other Friends do and the original wording would have given those funds to the government, which could have violated state laws.
5. The initial requirement to turn over, on request, the names of members and donors was eliminated.

We are happy to report that there were no significant glitches in our operations during the brief dissolution of our formal relationship with our refuge.

​We are equally happy to have been part of the solution to this knotty problem that several of us saw as government overreach into the operations of nonprofit Friends groups.