In earlier postings the Nonprofiteer has been uncompromisingly hard-ass about the impact of the price of gas on volunteers and nonprofits; but this article in the Times is a salutary reminder that the impact is not really on them but on the clients they serve. Our best way of supporting these agencies is not with special gas-tax exemptions or mileage subsidies, though, but with plain old American cash in whatever amounts we can spare after paying our own bills.
It’s good for this country to have higher gas prices because nothing else will keep people from overusing gasoline. But the function of the third sector and the government is, as it has always been, to modify the effects of the free market on the needy (or, as it is written, to temper the wind to the shorn lamb); and til the government starts doing its job for the poor, those of us who care about charity will just have to do the job ourselves.
Tags: charity, gas prices, nonprofit, not for profit
