Nonprofit Law Prof Blog Ian Murray (University of Western Australia) has published Donor Advised Funds: What Can North America Learn From the Australian Approach? in the Canadian Journal of Comparative and Contemporary Law. Here is the abstract: Charity law is a public and private hybrid that seeks to balance donor intent with the achievement of public benefit. In supporting that balance, regulatory frameworks typically intrude less on donor intent when the recipient charity is a publicly controlled charity, rather than a private foundation. This approach is challenged by the rise of donor advised funds — public charity intermediaries that behave in many ways like privately controlled foundations. The rise has been particularly marked in the United States, but is also apparent in Canada and Australia. Pertinently, while Australia took many years to regulate private foundations, it shortly afterwards also introduced specific rules for public charitable foundations. This article therefore examines whether the United States and Canada can draw guidance from Australia’s experience in dealing with donor advised funds, especially in relation to delay in distributions and conflicts of interest.