FEATURE Limiting Your Liability for Charitable Solicitations by R. Wayne Pierce


“They need to figure out how to track customer names, addresses, and purchase amounts for every hot dog sold, carousel turned, or porta-potty flushed.”


– Agency counsel Martha H. Brown,


arguing what carnivalsmust do to comply with Pennsylvania’s charitable solicitation statute


Quick quiz: Are you in business to help your sponsors make money, or are you in business to provide a service to your sponsors? Your answer to this fundamental question can seriously affect your ability to thrive and prosper in the mobile amusement industry.


The Problem Although not well known in the amusement industry, the


government, usually a state’s Attorney General, has been regulating charitable solicitations for centuries. The concern is that soliciting funding for charities is rife with fraud and that the gullible public is incapable of protecting itself. This is relevant if your show or operation crosses the line and becomes a commercial fundraiser (i.e., those entities who take on a fundraising role for charities) when you do business 


 From this simple proposition, a morass of demanding 


commercial fundraiser, then even you as a mobile amusement operator may be obligated to:


• Register to do business in 43 states. Problems for mobile operations: Registration can include your disciplinary 


• Provide advance notice to state agencies of any solicitations 


Minimum registration deadlines will preclude late-added spots.


reports typically would require - the names of everyone who will solicit, which might


include ticket sellers, ticket takers, or even employees  who merely recommend particular attractions; the “


- minimum advance notice that probably precludes spot help.


   account holders.


• File written contracts before holding events with charities in 38 states. Problems for mobile operations: This can include both the gross-revenue split as well as in-and-out- of-state revenue. Do you want your contracts to become open to public inspection? Typically, the event cannot be held until the state agency approves, and the charity can repudiate a contract on short notice and replace it with a more favorable deal. • Submit  after each event in 36 states. Problems for mobile operations: Your post-event reports


typically would require - gross revenue and all expenses incurred for the entire event, not just your business operation, and both in and out of state. Will you even have that granular detail for your entire events?





• Retain records in 43 states. Problems for mobile operations: Your records must typically include: - the name and address of every contributor (i.e., patron),


  Every single time a patron takes a ride, plays a game, or eats


- the name and address of every employee and even


food, will you be able to document the entire ride crew,  ticket sellers, the chain of command, every inspector, every


  a recommendation, the parking lot attendants, parking lot cashiers, and even other patrons who bought tickets that they could not use and gave them away as they left the carnival?  - all revenue and expenses for the solicitation by any


  Will you have all revenue records when the sponsor sells the tickets, or for independent midways? Will you have expenses for booked-in rides, and will booked-in rides  have total revenue? Is annual maintenance months earlier


  - the number of tickets that are sold as well as donated.


• Provide mandatory disclosures to donors in 43 states. Problems for mobile operations: Every time you solicit funding from patrons, you typically will be required to disclose your name as commercial fundraiser and the name of the individual employee, the fact that the commercial


How will you determine the number of tickets sold for pay-one-price? If a patron purchases tickets and then chooses to donate them, will you be able to track them? This would put you into the full-time data collection business.


14 OABA ShowTime Magazine • MAY 2024


along with the date and amount of each contribution. Will your customers tolerate such an intrusion?


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