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The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) was founded in 1952 to foster and strengthen national and international justice systems. Working across five continents, the ICJ is composed of 60 eminent judges and lawyers from all regions of the world and from all legal systems. The ICJ works to ensure that international law, and human rights and humanitarian law in particular, is employed for the protection of the most vulnerable through effective national and international procedures.

As we bring another year to a close at NGOsource, we invite private foundations and donor advised funds (“grantmakers”) to think about how to maximize equivalency determination (ED) validity periods. The ED validity period, which is dictated by U.S. tax law, indicates when a grantmaker can rely on the written advice provided in the ED. The validity period of an ED is based on an organization’s fiscal year.

This has been a huge year of growth and change for NGOsource.

As we approach Thanksgiving here in the U.S. (and Native American Heritage month), NGOsource's legal team would like to extend its heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the many grantmakers and NGOs that populate, support, and enrich our ED repository. It is entirely thanks to the expertise, drive, and diversity of our grantmakers and NGOs that we have grown to over 8,000 EDs in 239 countries.

This past month, TechSoup launched its inaugural Global Diversity and Inclusion Awareness Month. Led by NGOsource's own program manager, LaCheka Phillips, the month was designed with the following three aims in mind:

NGOsource's general manager, Kevin Ryan, and its chief counsel, Martha Lackritz-Peltier, had a busy October. Speaking and participating at venues around the globe, they promoted their work on a uniform due diligence assessment tool for the humanitarian sector.

Since 1990, Privacy International has fought to protect the right to privacy around the globe. The UK-based NGO is committed to challenging governments and companies that access individuals', groups', and whole societies' data without consent. Privacy International firmly believes that privacy is necessary to protect autonomy and human dignity. All people everywhere need it, regardless of citizenship, race and ethnicity, economic status, gender, age, or education.

In an earlier post about public support tests, we briefly discussed how an organization might qualify as a publicly supported charity under either Section 509(a)(1) or 509(a)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code.

According to Uganda's 2014 Population and Housing Census, 7 out of every 50 people aged 5 or above have one or more disabilities.^[1] Women in Uganda also tend to have a higher prevalence of disability than men. In 1999, a group of women and youth with disabilities came together at a national conference in Kampala, Uganda, after observing rights violations of women and girls with disabilities.

This October, over 300 people from the global South and North are expected to join together in Istanbul, Turkey to share and collaborate on responses to issues facing the social sector. This initiative, known as the World Humanitarian Action Forum, aims to foster dialogue and action by bringing together individuals across the globe who are passionate about making a difference through effective humanitarian work.