## Facts

- The Village of Schaumburg, Illinois enacted an ordinance requiring a permit for door-to-door and on-street solicitation of contributions.
- The ordinance limited permits to organizations that could show at least 75% of receipts were used for “charitable purposes.”
- “Charitable purposes” excluded solicitation expenses, salaries, overhead, and other administrative expenses, making organizations with more than 25% such costs ineligible.
- Citizens for a Better Environment (CBE), a nonprofit advocacy organization that solicited contributions and engaged in public education, was denied a permit because its budget did not meet the 75% threshold largely due to staff salaries and related costs.
- CBE sought declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging the ordinance violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
- The district court granted summary judgment to CBE and enjoined enforcement; the Seventh Circuit affirmed, treating the challenge as facial and concluding CBE’s internal operations were immaterial to the ordinance’s constitutionality.

## Issues

1. Whether charitable solicitation conducted door-to-door or on the street is protected expression under the First and Fourteenth Amendments rather than merely commercial speech.
2. Whether a municipality may condition solicitation permits on a fixed requirement that 75% of receipts be used for “charitable purposes” defined to exclude salaries and overhead.
3. Whether the ordinance is facially invalid as unconstitutionally overbroad because it restricts substantial protected speech relative to its legitimate applications.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed in an 8–1 decision.
- The Court held the ordinance was unconstitutionally overbroad under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
- The Court ruled that charitable solicitation involves protected speech interests (information, advocacy, and propagation of ideas) and is not properly treated as purely commercial speech.
- Although preventing fraud, protecting public safety, and preserving residential privacy are legitimate governmental interests, the 75% rule only peripherally furthered those interests while directly and substantially burdening protected expression.
- The Court emphasized that the ordinance barred solicitation by advocacy-oriented organizations, including those using contributions for reasonable salaries tied to their educational and informational work.
- The Court noted less speech-restrictive measures were available (antifraud laws, disclosure and licensing requirements, and time, place, and manner limits), making the percentage-based prohibition unjustified.

## Legal Principles

- Charitable solicitation is protected expressive activity because it is commonly intertwined with advocacy and the dissemination of information and ideas.
- Regulations that impose a direct and substantial burden on protected solicitation must be supported by a sufficiently strong governmental interest and drafted with precision.
- A law may be struck down on its face under the First Amendment if it reaches a substantial amount of protected speech in relation to its plainly legitimate scope (overbreadth doctrine).
- Fraud prevention and resident protection may be pursued through targeted tools (misrepresentation prohibitions, disclosure, and neutral time, place, and manner rules) rather than broad financial-percentage eligibility bans.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated Schaumburg’s permit scheme because its rigid 75% “charitable use” requirement, defined to exclude salaries and overhead, broadly suppressed protected charitable and advocacy solicitation while only marginally serving the municipality’s stated interests, rendering the ordinance facially overbroad under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.


Vill. of Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 444 U.S. 620 (1980)