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| U.S.
Code |
A consolidation and codification
of the general and permanent laws of the United States arranged by subject
under 50 titles, the first six dealing with general or political subjects,
and the other 44 alphabetically arranged from agriculture to war. The U.S
Code is updated annually, and a new set of bound volumes is published every
six years.
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| UBIT |
Unrelated Business Income Tax
is one way to measure whether a mailing is substantially related to the
mission of the nonprofit. For example, if an organization is doing an event
that they will have to pay UBIT on, then the mail advertising the event
cannot go out at the preferred rate.
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| Umbrella
Trusts |
Umbrella trusts allow donors tax
deductibility on donations without having to go through the usually long
process of setting up a stand alone trust and getting tax deductibility
recognition from the ATO. The purpose of these 'charitable shell' structures
is to allow donors easy access to tax deductibility, to enjoy the benefits
of balanced fund management, and to allow donors to choose between giving
to a general fund or to create a sub-trust that may be named after the donor
or his/her family.
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| Unanimous
Consent |
Proceedings of the House or Senate
and action on legislation often take place upon the unanimous consent of
the chamber, whether or not a rule of the chamber is being violated. Unanimous
consent is used to expedite floor action and frequently is used for routing
procedural requests.
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| Unanimous
Consent Agreement |
A device used in the Senate to
expedite legislation. Much of the Senate’s legislative business, dealing
with both minor and controversial issues, is conducted through unanimous
consent or unanimous consent agreements. On major legislation, such agreements
are usually printed and transmitted to all senators in advance of floor
debate. Once agreed to, they are binding on all members unless the Senate,
by unanimous consent, agrees to modify them.
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| Undivided
Interest |
A term used for the sake of analyzing
the tax deduction aspects of charitable gifts. |
| Undue
Hardship |
With respect to the provision
of an accommodation for an employee with a disability, significant difficulty
or expense incurred by a covered entity, when considered in light of certain
factors. |
| Unduplicating |
Eliminating duplicate records
from a mailing list sot that recipients don’t get multiple pieces within
the same mailing.
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| Unicameral |
A legislature comprised on only
one house
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| Unified
Credit |
A one-time credit of $192 taxpayers
can deduct from their estate tax: deduction and gift tax, is sufficient
to exempt an estate of $600,000, effectively making estate tax and gift
tax rate 37%. Also termed as Unified Transfer Tax Credit. |
| Unified
Transfer Tax |
This the correct name for the
two federal taxes still commonly referred to as estate tax and gift tax
For many years, each of these taxes had its own rate. Now, both taxes have
the same rate. Both are computed in virtually the same way, and the estate
tax is computed generally by taking life-time gifts into account.
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| Uniform
Gift Annuity Rates |
Rates which the Committee on Gift
Annuities recommends for approval to the Conference on Gift Annuities. From
the Green Book: "Those rates (which are the percentages multiplied by the
amounts paid for the annuities to determine the annual amounts of annuity
payments) have been computed to produce at the death of the annuitant(s)
an average "residuum" gift to the organization of approximately 50 percent
of the amount transferred by the donor." Nonprofits are not required to
use the rates, but their use is highly recommended. See Charitable Gift
Annuity. The rates are changed periodically to reflect actuarial mortality
experience and income potential on reserves invested to pay the annuities.
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| Union
Calendar |
Bills that directly or indirectly
appropriate money or raise revenue are placed on this House calendar according
to the date they are reported from committee.
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| Unitrust |
A term commonly used to refer
to a Charitable Remainder Unitrust.
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| Unix |
An operating system used to develop
the Internet's communication software protocols.
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| Unqualified
Report |
The standard unqualified report
is regarded as a clean bill of health; the auditor made no exceptions and
inserts no qualifications in the report. An unqualified opinion can only
be expressed when the independent auditor has formed the opinion on the
basis of an examination made in accordance with generally accepted accounting
principles, applied in a consistent basis, and includes all informative
disclosures necessary to make the statements not misleading. |
| Unrelated
Business Income Tax (UBIT) |
Tax on income that is the result
of any legal trade or business conducted by a nonprofit organization to
make money in a way not directly related to its tax-exempt mission. |
| Unrestricted
Fund |
Typically found at foundations,
an unrestricted fund is one that is not specifically designated to particular
uses by the donor, or for which restrictions have expired or been removed.
These funds allow the organization to determine where the donation will
do the most good. |
| Unrestricted
Funds |
A gift made unconditionally; the
reverse of a restricted gift. |
| Unrestricted
Gift |
A gift made unconditionally; the
reverse of a restricted gift. |
| Unsolicited
Proposal |
A proposal sent to a foundation
without invitation or prior knowledge of the foundation. Some foundations
will not accept unsolicited proposals or applications. |
| Unspecified
Capital Support Awards |
Grants for constructing, renovating,
remodeling, or rehabilitating property. |
| Unzip |
To decompress and open up a ZIP
file using WinZip or another type of file compression program.
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| Upgrade |
To change a system or program
to a newer version. This can refer to hardware or software.
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| Upgrade |
An increase in a donor’s gift
from the previous year or gift.
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| Upload |
To copy a file from your local
computer to a server or host system; the reverse process of download.
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| Upper
House |
A term used to refer to the senate
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| Upper-Level
Contributions |
A more difficult offer. You can’t
expect to receive high numbers of upper-level contributions from mailing
to outside lists. However, response to an upper level contribution is a
means of upgrading customers within the database.
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| UPS |
Uninterruptible Power Supply.
This device is used to provide power during interruptions, thus allowing
the user a limited time to save and safely shut down the computer or server.
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| Urgency
Clause |
A clause added to bills that require
immediate action for reasons of public need or safety. Urgency bills go
into effect immediately. All urgency bills need a 2/3 vote in order to pass
our of either house
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| URL |
Uniform Resource Locator. Another
name for a Web page address.
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| URL
- Uniform Resource Locator |
Another name for a Web site address.
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| USB |
Universal Serial Bus. A type of
connector providing easy expandability, up to 127 devices, and bus transfer
speeds of 12 megabits/second. The newer version, USB 2.0, has a 480 megabits/second
transfer rate, similar to that of Firewire. |
| Use
of Property |
The right to use property can
come in many forms. The importance of this term is in the fact that the
mere right to use property, in whatever form, is a non-qualifying partial
interest, except in the limited case of qualified conservation contributions.
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| User |
The generic definition of the
occupant of a space. This may be a company or department. A given space
may have more than one user.
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| User
Fees |
Fees charged to users of goods
or services provided by the Federal Government. In levying or authorizing
these fees, Congress determines whether the revenue should go into the Treasury
or should be available to the agency providing the goods or services.
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| User-Friendly |
Refers to something that is easy
to learn or use.
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| Username |
The name used to access certain
programs, Web sites, software, or networks.
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| USP
- Unique Selling Proposition |
A one-line description of your
company's products or services that differentiates it among your market
from the offerings of its competitors.
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| Utility |
The extent to which an evaluation
produces and disseminates reports that inform relevant audiences and have
beneficial impact on their work.
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| Utility |
A program that helps to maintain
and improve the efficiency of a computer system. This term also refers to
programs that utilizes a system to provide a specific service.
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Glossary information provided by the Nonprofit Good Practice Guide, a project of the Philanthropic and Nonprofit Knowledge Management Initiative (PNKM) at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership.
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