North Seattle Community College Foundation

“Each board member is provided a copy of the form 990 and asked to review the form and provide any comments prior to filing with the internal revenue service.”

“Officers and directors complete a conflict of interest disclosure yearly. The organization's attorney reviews all information to ensure there are no conflicts. If a conflict of interest arises with a board member, they will not be able to participate in discussion or vote on such transaction or arrangement.”

“The board of directors reviews and sets the salary of the ceo based upon comparability data. In addition, they approve the salaries suggested by the ceo for her direct reports. Salary revisions were based on local salary surveys obtained and job performance. The last compensation review was performed in september of 2016.”

“The organization would review each request and if deemed reasonable, provide copies of the requested data.”

“Nsf refers to non-sufficient funds.”

“There were three volunteers during the year. Two volunteers served on the board of directors, one as an ex-officio board member and one who served without accepting a meeting fee. The other volunteer performed administrative duties for the organization. The additional seven voting directors of the board contributed a significant amount of time to the organization. However, they received a nominal meeting fee for their service and are therefore not included on part i, line 6 of the tax return.”

“Including promoting, supporting, maintaining, developing, and extending educational offerings and the pursuit thereof at or in connection with north seattle college. American financial solutions (afs) is a division of north seattle community college foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization. Afs is dedicated to: -educating the general public on the proper use of credit, debt management, and other related purposes. -providing financial support to north seattle college to fund student scholarships and other educational programs. No part of the net earnings of the foundation or of afs inures to the benefit of any private person or organization other than student scholarships and related programs of north seattle college. Afs was established as a program of the foundation during the fiscal year ended june 30, 1999. Afs operates a consumer credit counseling program and as such, offers counseling, education, referral resources, and debt management programs to its callers. Afs also offers a variety of educational and counseling resources and programs to the general public and community organizations. The purpose of these services is to enable financially distressed people to have a better understanding of their personal finances and use of credit by offering resources and alternatives to them. Programs offered include financial literacy education, credit counseling, debt management plans, home foreclosure counseling, counseling before bankruptcy, post-bankruptcy education and student loan counseling.”

“The internal revenue service has established guidelines for tax exempt credit counseling organizations, which are described in irc section 501(q). North seattle community college foundation reviews these guidelines each year and verifies that it does meet the requirements of irc section 501(q), as follows: the organization provides credit counseling services tailored to the specific needs and circumstances of the consumer; does not make loans to debtors; provides only incidental services to improve consumer credit records and credit history, and does not charge a separate fee for such services; does not refuse services based on ability to pay or ineligibility/unwillingness of consumer to enroll in a debt management plan (dmp); charges reasonable fees and provides waivers if consumer is unable to pay; the majority of the organization's board members represent broad interests of the public and are not employed by the organization or benefit from it; the organization does not have ownership in an entity that is involved in the credit counseling or similar business; and does not pay for referrals or receive amounts for providing referrals for debt management plans. In addition, the organization does not solicit contributions from consumers during the initial counseling process, or while a consumer is receiving services from the organization; and the amount of revenue the organization receives from its customers' creditors attributable to dmp services does not exceed the limit of 50 percent of total revenues.”