The UCLA School of Law Lowell Milken Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofits and Loyola Law School was pleased to host the 29th Western Conference on Tax-Exempt Organizations on March 12 and March 13, 2026 at The California Endowment's Center for Healthy Communities in Downtown Los Angeles. This year's two-day conference was sold out, with nearly 175 lawyers, accountants, and in-house professionals representing a broad range of nonprofit organizations. ‍Please check in next fall to snag an early bird ticket for next year's conference.

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Highlights Included:

• Reconsidering Bob Jones: Public Policy, Illegality, & DEI

• Creative Structures for the Common Good

• Developing a Response Plan

• Navigating the New World of College Sports

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Date & Time

Thursday, March 12, 2026 | 7:30 A.M. – 6:30 P.M.

Friday, March 13, 2026 | 7:30 A.M. – 12:30 P.M.

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Event Venue and Host:

The California Endowment

1000 Alameda Street

Los Angeles, CA 90012

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Pricing:

• Early Bird Rate: $900 (Closed on January 31, 2026)
• Normal Rate: $1100
• Day 1 Access - $700
• Day 2 Access - $400

All ticket levels were sold out.

*Parking at the California Endowment is free

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Los Angeles Area Law Student Scholarships‍

Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, we were pleased to be able to offer a limited number of scholarships to students attending law schools in Los Angeles who have an interest in nonprofit law.

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Student Testimony

Andrew Goldblatt, UCLA Law 2027

LMPN Research Assistant

"The 29th Western Conference on Tax-Exempt Organizations brought together practitioners, general counsel, and academics whose work has shaped nonprofit law and policy. As a law student attending for the first time, with a background in nonprofit operations, I noticed the caliber of expertise in the room right away. The tribute to Doug Mancino, a longtime contributor to the conference, early in the conference reflected a professional culture I came to appreciate over two days: one where technical mastery and generosity toward colleagues go hand in hand.

The conference's programming reflected a sector under serious pressure on nearly every major front: DEI-related executive orders that create a chilling effect without defining their terms, efforts to repeal the Johnson Amendment, the SPONSOR Act's proposed liability regime for fiscal sponsors, Loper Bright's destabilization of agency guidance, shifting IRS enforcement priorities, and aggressive state attorney general activity from both ends of the political spectrum. Any one of these would be significant on its own. Their convergence creates an environment in which organizations must triage across multiple fronts, without knowing which threats will materialize and which will remain hypothetical. The conference gave practitioners a framework for that triage. The State Actions panel counseled proactive engagement with regulators. The crisis communications keynote stressed restraint and message discipline. Both are sound advice, but they pull in different directions when an organization is managing a regulatory relationship and public scrutiny at the same time.

The "‘Reconsidering Bob Jones: Public Policy, Illegality, and DEI"’ session struck me the most. One panelist articulated a vision of the nonprofit sector's constitutional independence rooted in the First Amendment's "expressive association" doctrine. Their argument was that charitable organizations engaged in remedial action are exercising a form of expression when they select beneficiaries in furtherance of their mission. The selection criteria and the mission are inseparable. Compelled inclusion would compel a different message, and that collision with the First Amendment gives the sector a principled, constitutionally grounded defense of its independence. The argument was carefully constructed, and it resonated in the room.

Another panelist responded by pressing on what that "expressive association" argument actually means in practice. An organization whose exempt status is threatened must decide whether it can afford to fight. Are the legal fees, the reputational risk, and the years of operational disruption survivable, even if the underlying argument is right? The exchange captured a question that ran through the entire conference: organizations are being forced to identify their red lines on principle, and those red lines are colliding with the reality of what it takes to survive.

The Creative Structures for the Common Good panel on fiscal sponsorship highlighted a different challenge: the gap between how the sector actually operates and how its critics assume it operates. Fiscal sponsorship arrangements have been refined over decades, and organizations throughout the nonprofit world depend on them. The SPONSOR Act would impose serious new liability on these structures, but the legislation does not appear to account for how they actually function. The practitioners who build and maintain these structures understand them at a level of detail that the legislation does not reflect, and that understanding is itself a resource the sector can draw on. The sector is vulnerable to poorly aimed regulation, but its infrastructure has a depth and sophistication that blunt attacks are unlikely to dislodge.

WCTEO reconnected me with the issues that drew me to law school in the first place. The challenges facing the sector are serious, but the 29th conference made clear that the community has the depth and commitment to meet them. I look forward to seeing how the conversation continues at the 30th."

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Camila Fajardo Aguirre, UCLA Law 2026

I was awarded a scholarship to attend the 29th Western Conference on Tax-Exempt Organizations, organized by the Lowell Milken Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofits of University of California, Los Angeles - School of Law which brings together lawyers, academics, regulators and executives from the third sector to discuss the current challenges of tax-exempt organizations here in California, and in the US in general.First, I highlight the ability of this faculty to connect the legal world with philanthropy in such a direct and practical way. The third sector faces challenges (and many) that require strategic legal and regulatory perspectives, and having so many spaces focused on discussing these elements I consider it a privilege!

Three points that were turning me around:

In a challenging context for the sector in the US. In the US, the role of nonprofits in democratic life and how easy it can be to violate them was highlighted. Thinking about Chile, this does not only involve authorizing its constitution, but also quieter decisions such as access to donation laws and compliance with their requirements, which in practice define whether or not an organization can deploy its mission.- Nonprofits have missions to fulfill, and for that they need something that is sometimes underestimated: order and legal strategy. Comply with its statutes, with reporting deadlines, have clear and disseminated policies, identify its main risks... all of this is not an accessory. There is a point at which the disorder simply ceases to be correctable and puts the objective of the entity at risk.- Probably what I liked the most was a panel where the regulator talked openly with lawyers and directors of nonprofits. Not from the "terror" of auditing, but from a collaborative perspective: they shared what they focus on, what they look at in more detail and gave concrete tips to improve reporting processes. I thought it was a very valuable way to bring authority closer to the sector, without starting from mistrust. Instances like this would be very useful in Chile (and if they already exist, happy to know them!).

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