Charity Governance: What's Trust Law Got to Do with It?

The traditionally distinct regimes for governing charitable trusts and nonprofit corporations have been conforming. At the same time, by continuing to make distinctions based on organizational form rather than structure and operations, we might be asking the wrong questions. To what extent do trusts and corporations have irreducible legal differences? Key issues that initially appear unique to trust law on closer inspection turn out to apply to some or all corporate charities—and corporate doctrine might be more appropriate for charitable trusts having a broad governing board, In the end, the distinction between "trust law" and "corporate law" might make less sense than identifying what legal principles of governance should apply to charities with multiple, independent fiduciaries, and what (if any) different legal principles should apply to charities governed by only a single fiduciary, or a small number of fiduciaries (particularly if they are related).