Recently we became aware of the comments that some people made in an interview with Manny Hernandez, President of the Diabetes Hands Foundation. The board of the Diabetes Hands Foundation wants to address a few of the comments:
- The Diabetes Hands Foundation (DHF) has been incorporated as a nonprofit in the state of California since March 2008.
DHF is in the process of applying for an exemption from income tax under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. The 501(c)(3) status will allow us to make your donations tax deductible.DHF obtained 501(c)(3) (charitable) status from the IRS, Sept. 21, 2009. This allows us to make your donations tax deductible. - In parallel with our application for tax-exempt status from the IRS, DHF secured a Fiscal Sponsorship from Community Initiatives. A fiscal sponsor is “a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization that acts as a sponsor for a project or group that does not have its own tax-exempt status.” This allowed us to offer our contributors a tax deduction on their donations before we obtained our 501(c)(3) status.
- When a donation is received by the foundation, 75% of the money is used to maintain our social networks and our diabetes awareness programs; 15% goes to support our fundraising efforts; and the remaining 10% covers administrative expenses. DHF makes no claim that it raises funds to help find a cure for diabetes.
- The salaries paid to the foundation’s full-time employees were approved by the compensation committee of our Board of Directors, in line with nonprofit salary surveys published for 2007 and 2008 for the San Francisco Bay area.
- Last, the Diabetes Hands Foundation runs only two social networks: TuDiabetes.com and EsTuDiabetes.com. Besides these two online communities, we have a web site and we run several blogs and have a presence on other sites to help us with our outreach efforts.
If you have any other questions about what we do, why we do it or how we do it, please include them here.