Robert Boisture

Robert A. Boisture formerly a member in Caplin & Drysdale’s Washington, D.C. office, was a group leader of the firm’s exempt organizations practice group and served as President of the firm. Boisture joined the firm in 1979; from 1986 – 1992 he served as Associate General Counsel and then Director of Public Policy for the YMCA of the USA, and rejoined Caplin & Drysdale in 1992.

Boisture has advised clients on numerous subjects, including qualification for tax-exempt status, charitable contributions, private foundation rules, legal responsibilities of charitable boards, unrelated business income tax, for-profit subsidiaries and joint ventures, limitations on legislative activities of charities, and state law fiduciary duties of charitable directors. Boisture also has extensive experience in assisting clients in formulating and implementing legislative and communications strategies on complex legal and policy issues.

Boisture has served as a long-time advisor to Independent Sector, the Council on Foundations, and the YMCA of the USA. He was the Director of the legal staff to the Panel on the Nonprofit Sector, a blue ribbon panel formed at the request of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance to formulate recommendations on strengthening the accountability and effectiveness of the charitable sector. Boisture led the planning effort for and then directed YMCA Activate America, a national leadership initiative to strengthen YMCAs’ capacity to help Americans find healthier ways to live.

Boisture has served as co-editor of the Journal of Taxation of Exempt Organizations, as a member of the Advisory Board of the New York University Program on Philanthropy and the Law, as Chair of the Human Services Forum, as a board member of numerous charities including the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region and Charity Lobbying in the Public Interest, and as co-chair of the Partnership and Joint Ventures Subcommittee and the Health Care Subcommittee of the ABA Tax Section’s Exempt Organizations Committee.