Charitable Contributions - Policy and Guidelines:

Policy and guidelines of HAA for handling charitable contributions from members of Havyaka Association of Americas to various organizations in the United States and abroad.  (Presented and Approved during the Bi-annual Convention of HAA held on July, 04 & 05, 2003 at Fort Washington, PA)

Havyaka Association of Americas (HAA) is a registered non-profit organization in USA and promotes charitable activities.  In this spirit, the Executive Committee proposes the following guidelines to handle the requests for charitable contributions received by the HAA and for the conduct of fund raising activities of HAA.

Section 1. REQUEST FOR CONTRIBUTION:

a)      Requests should have a sponsor who is currently a member/life member/patron member of HAA If there are more than one sponsor, the sponsors will confer among themselves and choose a liaising sponsor, who will simply be called `sponsor` henceforth. 

b)      Sponsor should obtain the appeal for donation from the head of receiving non-profit institution (called beneficiary). A copy suitably translated in English must be provided if the original is not in English.  The appeal should be written in official letterheads of the beneficiary. The appeal form should state clearly the goals of the project for which the funds will be utilized. The request should be accompanied by documentation showing that the beneficiary is indeed a non-profit organization approved by the central government of the country where it is located. Additional documentation should also be provided to demonstrate that it is an organization of good standing and track record.

c)      The sponsor should forward the written request from the proposed beneficiary with an endorsement to the executive committee for approval. If the sponsor is a member of the executive committee, he/she should abstain from the approval process from this point forward.

d)      After obtaining the preliminary approval of the executive committee, the sponsor shall prepare a HAA-charity appeal form to be distributed to HAA members. The HAA-appeal form must contain the name, postal address, e-mail address and telephone number information of the sponsor and beneficiary. The appeal should summarize the purpose of the request and the nature of the charitable cause. The HAA-charity appeal form shall state that the sponsor will take full responsibility of the proper utilization of the donated funds to the stated charitable cause. The appeal should be submitted electronically so that it may be made available to the HAA via email/ web page. A hard copy of the electronic HAA-charity form that is signed and dated by the sponsor must be mailed to the executive committee.

Section 2. PROCESSING OF THE REQUEST:

a)      Executive committee will process all the signed requests received by the deadline, June 30^th annually. (Requests received after June 30^th may be processed further during next calendar year).

b)      Executive committee will disseminate all approved HAA-charity appeal forms (with possible modifications) to the HAA webpage or other means/ networks.

c)      Members at-large may make contributions to HAA and designate one or more of the listed charities as the beneficiary of their contributions. Undesignated            donations will be used for the general annual charitable contribution by the HAA.

d)      Annually, executive committee will disburse the contributions collected before Sept 30^th, by Oct 31^st.  Contributors have to understand that only 85% of their contribution will be forwarded to the project of their choice. The remaining 15% will be donated per HAAs decision, to charitable causes in the USA, where in HAA is the registered non-profit organization. Such contributions could include various registered non-profit or charitable institution in USA, such as but not limited to, Temples and Yoga or Spiritual Centers.

e)      The executive committee will make a single check payable to each beneficiary. The HAA can mail the check to the beneficiary directly or through the sponsor. It is the responsibility of the sponsor to ensure that the funds are utilized for the purposes stated in the HAA-charity appeal form.

Executive Committee, HAA

Havyaka Association of Americas

Non-Profit Corporation # 0100163931                                                 EIN # 22-2401975