[BCMA] Donation dispute

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv.]

Hello Jim:
 
If the grand daughter, who donated the military medals to your museum was their legal owner and has transferred ownership of these medals over to your museum (the Port Moody Heritage Society), by signing a gift form, then your museum is now legal owner of the medals.  It must be noted that regardless of whether or not a tax receipt has been issued to the donor for the fair market value of such gifted property, a registered charity in Canada CAN NOT return a donated gift of property to the donor without putting its charity status at risk.
 
"In most cases, a registered charity cannot return a donor's gift. At law, a gift transfers ownership of the money or other gifted property from the donor to the charity. Once the transfer is made, the charity is obliged to use the gift in carrying out its charitable purposes.  However, a charity may try to retain the goodwill of donors seeking the return of their gifts by offering to transfer the gifted property to another registered charity."  - Canada Revenue Agency Website - https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/charities-giving/charities/operating-a-registered-charity/receiving-gifts/returning-a-gift-a-donor.html
 
Canadian Charity Law - https://www.canadiancharitylaw.ca/blog/can_a_canadian_registered_charity_return_a_gift_to_a_donor/
 
"Deaccessioned artifacts should not be returned to their original donors (even if no tax receipt was originally issued) for risk of losing charitable status. However, museums may choose to alert the public, and donors, regarding decisions to deaccession artifacts (including rationale, method etc.) to maintain openness."  - Museums Association of Saskatchewan - https://saskmuseums.org/blog/entry/deaccessioning-artifacts-from-your-collection
 
Regards,

William Adams, BA, BBA, PBD (Public History), PSC (Collections Management)
Management & Museum Consultant, 
Public Benefit Consulting Services 
E-mail: pbcs at telus.net

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Sent: Monday, October 21, 2019 at 10:58 AM
From: "Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv." <bcma at lists.vifa.ca>
To: bcma at lists.vifa.ca
Subject: [BCMA] Donation dispute
Seeking advice

We accepted a donation of WW1 metals from a granddaughter of the WW1combatant. The sister of the donor has sent emails demanding we give the metals to her even threatening legal action.
>From the emails, the they to not get along. The sister didn't know the metals existed so I don't know how she found out we had just received them.
Our donation form has the line that the donor has the legal right to donate them to us.

Any advice how to deal with the situation? If we give them back, I believe we need to give them to the donor, not the sister. We don't have a legal dept.

Jim Millar
Port Moody Station Museum
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