Felicidad Imperial-Soledad
Felicidad Imperial-Soledad is the Executive Director of the Philippine Council for NGO Certification (PCNC), a non-stock, non-profit corporation authorized by the Philippine government to certify non-governmental organizations as such.
Ms. Imperial-Soledad was an educator for over 20 years, and as such, served as a volunteer accreditor in the Higher Education Division of the Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges, and Universities (PAASCU). Even while in the academic world, she was active in the Philippine NGO community, having helped to establish a number of non-government organizations in the southern part of the Philippines during the Marcos dictatorship.
She also served as the Executive Director of the Association of Foundations (AF), an umbrella organization of about 150 foundations operating in cities and provinces in the Philippines and also served briefly as the Executive Director of the League of Corporate Foundations (LCF), a network of some of the country’s largest and most active corporate foundations. It was during her term in AF and LCF that the Department of Finance (DOF), through the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program, signified its intention to take away the tax benefits enjoyed by local donors to NGOs. AF and LCF were among the six national NGO networks that negotiated with DOF for the retention of the tax benefits and eventually became two of the founding members of PCNC. As Executive Director of AF and LCF, she was then actively involved in the brainstorming and consultation sessions with representatives of government and other sectors that led to the birth of PCNC. She has managed PCNC’s operations from the training of evaluators to the evaluation of organizations applying for certification.
Ms. Imperial-Soledad has a Master of Arts degree in education and is a candidate for a Doctoral degree in organization development and planning.
PCNC serves as a service organization whose main function is to certify non-profit organizations that meet established criteria for financial management and accountability in the service to underprivileged Filipinos. PCNC was established by six of the country's largest national NGO networks and has a Memorandum of Agreement with the Philippine government under which it was given the authority to certify NGOs applying for done institution status based on specific standards. The certification would then serve as a basis for the Bureau of Internal Revenue to issue the certificate of donor institution status which grants tax benefits to the organization’s local donors.
