I suspect the author doesn't live in the US, as a few of his points don't apply to US non-profit law.<p>In particular:<p>"A charity (except in special circumstances) cannot pay a salary to anyone. Typically everyone who works for a charity is a volunteer."<p>In the US, when people talk about non-profits they're usually talking about organizations with the 501(c)3 tax status (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501%28c%29_organization#501.28c.29.283.29" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501%28c%29_organization#501.28c...</a>). Those organizations are further classified as either public charities or private foundations -- the former being what people typically mean by "non-profit."<p>US non-profits almost always pay some people for some of their work. There are restrictions on salary, insofar as you have to explain that salaries are justified to the IRS (this really only applies if the salary is beyond normal market rate).<p>"A charity must disclose all of its financials publicly, in great detail, and be audited by several government bodies. "<p>The same is true in the US, though non-profits do not have an audit requirement here. Large non-profits typically hire a CPA to do an audit each year, though, as multi-million foundation grant-givers often require it.<p>"A charity may only do things which have charitable purpose for public benefit, and nothing else."<p>This isn't strictly true in the US. A charity can engage in unrelated business, but it's taxed on it and it can't account for a substantial amount of revenue. For instance, most Museums have gift shop, and selling stuffed animals isn't usually their charitable purpose, so the organization will typically pay tax on that revenue.<p>"A charity receives large amounts of tax-relief from the government for conforming to these rules."<p>True in the US -- non-profits don't pay income tax and donations are tax-deductible.