Charitable institutions, by definition, are created for the benefit of the public. Often, they are beneficiaries of trust instruments.1
Yet the ordinary protections enjoyed by private trust beneficiaries against trustee misfeasance are currently unavailable to the “public” as beneficiary, even when trustees seek to modify, through a cy pres proceeding, the terms of a charitable trust instrument that is more than a century old.2 The doctrine of cy pres allows trustees to change the method of pursuing the trust’s mission when its current means becomes “impractical or impossible.”3 Trustees must demonstrate not only that administration of the trust is impracticable but also must propose an alternate plan that is “cy pres comme possible,” meaning “as near as possible” to the original intent of the founder.4
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