Archive for the ‘Current Affairs’ Category
February 3, 2012
When Warren Buffett challenged Mitch McConnell to help him pay down the deficit, McConnell paid him no never-mind—but a teenage girl in Northbrook, IL heard and responded, sending $300 to the Feds and asking Buffett to do the same. This is an adorable story, and the video makes it more adorable still.
But let’s not let this young woman’s sense of civic duty and remarkable act of civic participation distract from the real point of the Buffett challenge, which is that without increased taxation of the wealthy, jerks like Mitch McConnell will free-ride on public-spirited souls like Katie Murphy.
Tags:charity, IRS, nonprofit, not for profit, philanthropy, politics, Poverty, volunteer, volunteering, women
Posted in Current Affairs, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Volunteers/Volunteerism | Leave a Comment »
February 2, 2012
as they seem to have lost their own. Komen’s decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood at the behest of an anti-choice Board member reminds us how ready the right wing is to sacrifice women’s health for political gain.
There’s a petition to sign if you want to want to make your voice heard. If you’ve been a Komen supporter and you now de-fund the organization, your voice will be heard even louder.
Tags:501c3, charity, foundations, Fundraising, nonprofit, not for profit, politics, Poverty, Relations with funders, social services, women, Women's Issues
Posted in Advocacy, Advocacy groups, Boards of Directors, Charity scandals, Current Affairs, Disease charities, Foundation Hall of Shame/Stupid Foundation Tricks, Health care, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, Social Service Agencies, Women's Issues | 3 Comments »
February 1, 2012
but she’d really have preferred not to have this as an inspiration. There is no excuse for the decision of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, until now a respected source of information and funding in the fight against breast cancer, to defund Planned Parenthood‘s program of providing breast exams to poor women.
In fact, the decision doesn’t even make sense–unless you consider that a recent addition to the Board of Komen is an anti-choice ex-politician from Georgia. As another commentator has wisely noted, Planned Parenthood will survive this latest injury–the Nonprofiteer’s determination to support the agency has just been redoubled, and probably her gift will be, too–but Komen may not.
Please join the Nonprofiteer in notifying Komen of your distress at its decision to let irrelevant politics endanger the lives and health of poor women, and of your decision to redirect to Planned Parenthood any support you may have been giving to Komen.
Tags:501c3, Advocacy, Board of Directors, charity, foundations, Fundraising, Komen, nonprofit, not for profit, philanthropy, Planned Parenthood, politics, Poverty, Relations with funders, social services, women, women's health, Women's Issues
Posted in Advocacy, Advocacy groups, Boards of Directors, Current Affairs, Disease charities, Finances, Foundation Hall of Shame/Stupid Foundation Tricks, Fundraising, Health care, Mission, Nonprofits--General, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, Social Service Agencies, Women's Issues | 2 Comments »
January 13, 2012
The Nonprofiteer’s readers might enjoy this account of a pissing match between Warren Buffett and Mitch McConnell. The Senator from Kentucky has been urging the Sage of Omaha to make voluntary contributions to the Treasury if he felt he was undertaxed. Buffett has now responded that he’ll match any such contributions made by Republican Senators.
This dialogue makes in a different form Milton Friedman’s point as recounted by the Nonprofiteer yesterday. Voluntary contributions to reduce poverty (or do any of the other things we rely on the government to do) are insufficient, because everyone would be willing to pay his/her share only if s/he could be sure that everyone else would be willing to pay his/her share. Otherwise, no dice.
Doubtless McConnell will ignore Buffett’s challenge and continue his nonsensical bluster about Buffett’s freedom to pay extra if he feels “guilty” about his low tax rate. But the point isn’t, of course, how Buffett feels, or even what he does—it’s what everyone else does. And if McConnell and his buddies don’t donate to the Treasury, then they are poster children for the free-rider problem—thereby proving Buffett right: philanthropy is not sufficient and taxation is necessary.
H/T the indispensable Rick Cohen at The Nonprofit Quarterly.
Tags:501c3, charity, donors, IRS, nonprofit, not for profit, philanthropy, Poverty, social capital
Posted in Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Finances, Government grants, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Poverty, Private Philanthropy | Leave a Comment »
December 20, 2011
The most powerful argument Jack Shakely makes in his LA Times op-ed piece opposing the charitable tax deduction is that it’s a poor trade-off. The retired foundation executive points out that charities have permitted themselves to be shorn of their ability to influence policy and politics in return for a mess of pottage. Of course the restrictions on charitable participation in the public arena aren’t as draconian as nonprofit executives (and especially Boards) think they are—but the point is that nonprofits understand themselves to be constrained, and rather than bothering with the details remain quiescent politically.
As strong a proponent as the Nonprofiteer is of the pursuit of individual gifts, in the real world virtually every social service agency needs seriously more government money if it’s going to make any dent in the social problems it faces. The more social service agencies feel free to advocate for this particular budget bill or that particular provision in a piece of legislation—both prohibited by the current tax-code provisions—the more likely it is that those bills and provisions will pass, which would serve way more of the agencies’ clients than the most blue-sky estimates of their potential for growth in individual giving.
And for someone with foundation cred to say this! All hail Jack Shakely.
h/t The Nonprofit Quarterly Newswire.
Tags:501c3, Advocacy, charitable tax deduction, charity, donors, Executive Director, Fundraising, IRS, nonprofit, not for profit, philanthropy, Relations with funders, social services
Posted in Advocacy, Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Fundraising, Government grants, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Social Service Agencies | Leave a Comment »
November 22, 2011
Now here’s something that breaks the Nonprofiteer’s heart: the MacArthur Foundation is making grants to a dozen libraries and museums nationwide to establish youth computer learning centers modeled on YOUMedia, the Chicago Public Library’s innovative youth learning project.
Why does such good news evoke such profound sorrow? Because the Nonprofiteer can remember when the notion was that the philanthropic sector would serve as a laboratory, trying out new approaches to solving social problems and then passing along the ones that worked to be funded by the government. What we have here, however, is a model already vetted in the public sector whose future sustenance apparently will have to come from private charity.
This role-reversal is particularly galling here in Chicago, where the reward for the library’s pioneering work has been a substantial chop in the city’s library budget.
It’s hard to read a computer screen, or learn anything, when the world is upside-down.
Tags:501c3, charity, Chicago, Chicago Public Library, donors, MacArthur Foundation, nonprofit, not for profit, philanthropy, recession
Posted in Charity scandals, Current Affairs, Education, Finances, Government grants, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, Public private partnerships, Technology | Leave a Comment »
November 18, 2011
While the Feds debate the future of the charitable deduction (among many other aspects of the tax code), some states are diving in with modifications to their own tax subsidies to charity. Michigan, for instance, will apparently permit a tax credit for donations (available for the past forty-plus years) to expire at year’s end.
Naturally, nonprofit leaders are distressed and are giving voice to their concerns. The Nonprofit Quarterly reports:
According to Michigan Radio, the credit allows Michigan taxpayers to essentially double their contribution when they give to community foundations, homeless shelters, food banks, and public institutions (such as Michigan universities, museums, public libraries, and public broadcasting stations).
The tax credit has been eliminated as part of the governor’s plan to pay for a business tax cut. According to the Detroit News, 250,000 made use of the credit in 2010, and it earned $100 million for Michigan charities and provided $40 million in write-offs.
You won’t find the Nonprofiteer cheering any endeavor designed to pay for a business tax cut, especially when it’s so well-documented that many businesses pay nothing like the nominal rate–or even pay nothing at all. But it’s too simple, and not exactly correct, to argue that the tax credit earned $100 million on a $40 million investment. First, we don’t know how many of those gifts to charities would have been made anyway. Second, as is the case with all tax subsidies, the money taken from the public fisc doesn’t support the same public purposes it would if the taxes were paid. If Michigan traded $40 million worth of public schools and police officers for $100 million worth of private schools and university police forces, is it really better off? The allocation of funds matters as much as, if not more than, the raw amounts.
NPQ further quotes a representative of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan:
Studies have shown that people give to charity because they care about the cause, but tax policy influences how much people are able to give . . . . We anticipate that with the loss of the tax credit, people will give to charities they’ve supported in the past, but they will give less because it costs them more.
She may be correct, but that’s actually less an argument for maintaining the credit than for raising the tax rate on individuals. The higher the tax, the greater the value of any tax subsidy, and therefore the more likely individuals are to make tax-subsidized gifts.
That’s the theory, anyway. We’ll all be interested to see how this turns out.
And meanwhile, the Cook County Assessor has begun the process of returning Northwestern Memorial Hospital buildings to the property tax rolls, after a court ruled they were not “charities” and therefore not entitled to continued exemption under the state Constitution. The Illinois situation is worth watching because it represents a modification to tax subsidies not by the legislature but by the courts–meaning something not subject to public pressure or comment.
The Nonprofiteer is NOT arguing against “activist judges,” or any nonsense of that kind. The Illinois Supreme Court’s rulings in this area have been (in her view) utterly within the four corners of the Illinois Constitution. She’s merely making the point that sector-wide outcry will have no impact on judicial changes to the tax environment–which means that one way or another we’ll all find out soon how important tax subsidies really are.
Tags:501c3, charity, Chicago, donors, nonprofit, not for profit, philanthropy
Posted in Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Finances, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Public private partnerships | 1 Comment »
November 7, 2011
Alarms are sounding in the Nonprofiteer’s home town of Chicago today about the first budget proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, which requires nonprofits to pay for water and sewer services they previously received free. A sector-wide outcry produced one modification—a phasing-in of the charges over three years at smaller nonprofits—but generally the Mayor is keeping a campaign promise to ask nonprofits to bear their “fair share” of municipal costs.
He also seems to be following the lead of the Illinois courts which, as previously noted, are re-examining the nonprofit status of several of the state’s hospitals. The Nonprofiteer’s colleagues at The Nonprofit Quarterly characterize Emanuel’s move as over-reaching, in that it affects nonprofits other than hospitals. But the Nonprofiteer has no difficulty identifying non-hospital nonprofits whose water and sewer bills she doesn’t feel like subsidizing: the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago (which, notwithstanding the social services it provides, is mostly a very successful health club that uses a lot of water); the Art Institute of Chicago (which, notwithstanding the educational programs it provides, is a wealthy institution with very low personnel costs because every art-history major wants to work there); the University of Chicago (whose housing and athletic facilities use as much water as any suburban development and whose property tax exemption is secured by the Illinois Constitution). And let’s remember that the smallest nonprofits are renters, most of whom get water and sewer as part of their leases from for-profit landlords, and won’t be affected in the least. So a bit less howling, okay?
Especially as we contemplate this past weekend’s flood of accounts transferred to nonprofit credit unions in reaction to the obvious greed of the largest banks, particularly Bank of America. (Even a major philanthropist has moved his accounts to protest B of A’s failure or refusal to modify a reasonable number of mortgages). Maybe if the credit unions get wealthy enough they’ll be able to provide the rest of the sector with the working-capital loans it can rarely get from commercial banks. Maybe they’ll offer special water-and-sewer-bill loans.
And maybe a little taste of self-help will remind the sector that it’s supposed to be independent. Political trends come and go but the work we do must continue, and it’s our business to organize ourselves so it can.
Tags:501c3, arts groups, charity, Chicago, credit, nonprofit, not for profit, philanthropy, Real Estate, recession, Relations with funders, social services, taxation, water bills
Posted in Arts Organizations, Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Environmental, Finances, Government grants, Health care, Higher education, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Private Philanthropy, Public private partnerships, Real Estate, Relations with funders, Social Service Agencies | Leave a Comment »
October 27, 2011
Kudos to the Nonprofiteer’s nonprofit consulting colleagues Campbell and Co. for sponsoring a study by the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy to determine the impact on giving of increased marginal tax rates and a cap the charitable-giving deduction. While some of us have been arguing that both of these moves toward social justice should be supported by the nonprofit community, and others have been arguing that the world will come to an end if every penny of tax savings isn’t afforded to the generous rich, these institutions decided to look for the facts.
The facts–as elegantly stated in a Congressional Research Service study that came to the same conclusion–are these:
The estimated effects of the cap and other elements of the budget package depend on whether the proposals are compared with the current tax rates of 33% and 35% or the rates scheduled for 2011, 36% and 39.6%. Compared with current rules, estimated effects are between one-half a percent and 1% decline in charitable giving . . . . When compared with tax rate provisions in 2011, charitable deductions are estimated to fall by about 1.5% if only the cap is considered, but if income effects from the entire budget package are included contributions actually rise 2.5%. The relatively modest effects of the proposal arise because (1) the effect of caps on the subsidy value is limited, (2) only a fraction (about 16%) of charitable giving is affected, and (3) because evidence suggests that behavioral responses to changes in subsidies are relatively small.
(Emphasis the Nonprofiteer’s.) To paraphrase: the tax subsidy isn’t much reduced; that small reduction doesn’t affect 84% of charitable giving; and, in fact, charitable giving isn’t all that tied to tax benefit.
So whether we take the IUPUI findings that charitable giving is likely to decline modestly if these tax reforms are enacted, or the CRS findings that it might actually go up, we should realize that everyone who’s hyperventilating about the impact of these changes on their poor struggling private school, museum or hospital should just take a deep breath. Given that the reforms will support many of the social programs, environmental protections, educational institutions and health care options the nonprofits themselves seek to provide, it’s about time for the community to stop whining and agree to pony up.
Tags:501c3, charitable tax deduction, charity, donors, Fundraising, IRS, nonprofit, nonprofits, not for profit, philanthropy
Posted in Advocacy, Arts Organizations, Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Disease charities, Education, Environmental, Finances, Fundraising, Health care, Higher education, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Social Service Agencies | Leave a Comment »
August 9, 2011
Boy, this guy is the gift that just keeps on giving: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, not content to interfere with the provision of public services by destroying public-sector unions, has now decided to refuse to sign off on nonprofit grant applications to the Federal government that might “lead to ongoing programs that would need money from state taxpayers later.” The first wave of grant applications deprived of the state’s endorsement would have supported health services, including programs to reduce binge drinking, an unhealthy activity in which Wisconsin leads the nation.
The hard Right has long argued that government services were unnecessary because nonprofits could step into the breach. This claim was always nonsense; but at least its exponents didn’t also take on themselves the task of interfering with the charities’ overwhelmed attempts to do so. Wisconsinites will pay the same Federal taxes whether or not the state receives Federal grants to support its nonprofit sector. So clearly the point is not to shelter the state’s citizens from confiscatory taxes but to punish people who need help. Governor Walker’s ideology apparently requires not just that people in need of assistance seek private charity but that private charity be deprived of the means of assisting them.
And let’s be clear about the legal antecedents of what’s going on here. Groups of citizens of a single state are being deprived of access to something available to all other citizens of the United States—just as groups of citizens of the states of the Old Confederacy were once deprived of the vote. Then, “states’ rights” was a buzz-phrase meaning “the opportunity to mistreat black people without interference from those durned Feds.” Now, in Governor Walker’s view, the phrase is even more expansive, meaning “the opportunity to mistreat unhealthy and/or poor people of every color to make the point that those durned Feds have no right to interfere.” Anyone who’s enthusiastic about the states’ rights claims in the governors’ lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act should check out Wisconsin for a foretaste of what states’ rights really mean to the rights of states’ citizens.
The good news is, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 made clear that states’ rights are trumped by citizens’ right to vote. Thus—and despite many recent efforts to enact barriers to that right–-there’s a reasonable chance that Governor Walker will lose his legislative majority in the next few weeks, whereupon the appropriate state-federal balance can be restored.
Or, should I say, the Constitution can be restored.
——————
On Wisconsin! Part I appears here.
Tags:501c3, charity, Fundraising, grantmaking, grants, nonprofit, nonprofits, not for profit, politics, Poverty, recession, social services
Posted in Current Affairs, Disease charities, Finances, Fundraising, Government grants, Health care, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Poverty, Public private partnerships, Racism, Social Service Agencies | 2 Comments »
