Session 18 | 10:30 am | Protecting Your Foundation and its Assets

ICSC Mon AM 19

Session 18
10:30 am – 11:30 am

Huron
Protecting Your Foundation and its Assets

Speaker: Phillip Kunkel, Attorney
Principal
Gray Plant Mooty Law Firm
St. Cloud, Minnesota

Moderator: Mark Henry, J.D.
Secretary for Stewardship & Development
President, East Texas Catholic Foundation
Tyler, Texas

As the number of Catholic foundations continues to grow, so is the need for constant vigilance over its autonomy and asset protection. Foundation officers recognize that donors often prefer to give to separate foundations, administered independent of the Church and, conceivably, protected from any church-related litigation. This presentation, by an attorney with extensive experience with Catholic organizations, will offer recommendations and best practices for foundation executives who are vigilant to potential challenges to a foundation’s autonomy, its interaction with a diocese, conflicts of interest and the vulnerability of unrestricted foundation assets.

Mr. Phillip L. Kunkel

Phillip Kunkel is a Minnesota attorney who concentrates his practice in bankruptcy, receiverships, commercial financing and agricultural and agribusiness financing. He is a frequent lecturer on, among many subject areas, bankruptcy, commercial financing, and receiverships. He has served as a receiver in several receivership cases in Minnesota and has been asked to serve as a Chapter 11 trustee in several unique bankruptcy cases. Mr. Kunkel advises a number of Catholic organizations and other nonprofit clients in his practice area as well as the areas of corporate governance, independence and potential avoidable transfer matters.

Mr. Kunkel is licensed to practice before the United States Supreme Court and is listed as a “Minnesota Super Lawyer” by Thomson/Reuters. He is also listed with distinction in the publications, “Minnesota’s Best Lawyers,” by Minnesota Monthly and The Best Lawyers in America by Best Lawyers.

Mr. Kunkel graduated with honors from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota and earned his law degree with honors from the University of Minnesota Law School. He coauthored Business Workouts Manual, West Publishing, 2019; and he is the coeditor of Debtor-Creditor Handbook, Minnesota CLE, 2003-2019.

The expanse of Mr. Kunkel’s notable legal work includes having represented senior lenders in 25 renewable energy projects totaling more than $1.75 billion in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri and Illinois.