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Dear Nonprofiteer, Why didn’t I stay a volunteer?

February 22, 2012

Dear Nonprofiteer,

I need some advice.   I have been a paid employee of a non-profit for the last eight months. Before this I was an unpaid volunteer for several years. There are three of us in the office—the ED, the founder, and myself.

The Executive Director

For the last eight months I have been doing most of her job, and my own. As a result I am easily working sixty or more hours each week. Attempts to change this environment have been met with hostility. Despite repeated requests I still have no job description. My working relationship with the ED is close to breaking point. Simply put, I do not want to go into work tomorrow. I have my concerns about her integrity. At the start of the month I was told we were 20K above budget. Last week I overheard her tell the founder we were 40k under budget. I have no proof of mis-, mal- or nonfeasance, and to find that information would be extremely difficult. I would like to prepare a fact laden letter to the Board, but have very little proof.

The Board

I believe the Board has lost confidence in her ability. Their relationship with her appears strained. I also believe they have lost focus on what is best for the organization. A majority of the board are employees or board members of another organization, a non-profit in the same field. We take on the debt. They profit. The cynic in me wonders if there is an element of tax avoidance occurring. Despite repeated requests I am not shown Board minutes. There are open spaces on the Board, but only people friendly to this other organization are accepted. I have nominated two extremely qualified candidates to open positions. Emails inviting them to meetings have been “lost”.

The Numbers

We are a forty year old 501c3. There are three full time employees. During our busy periods we employ around 100 seasonal workers. Our turnover is approximately 300k a year. We provide a service to approximately 1400 children, teenagers and adults. We are four weeks away from the busiest time of our year.

The mission of the non-profit is very important to me. I want to do whatever is best for the long term health of the organization.

I have considered handing in my notice and writing an open letter to the Board explaining my decision. I love this organization though and don’t want to leave it. I have also considered raising my concerns with the state AG, but fear that could spell the end of the organization. Unfortunately I do not have the ear of anyone on the Board that I can speak to in confidence about this.

I am really torn as to what to do. Please advise.  Signed,

Concerned in Carolina

Dear Concerned,

You’ve laid out the central aspects of the situation very clearly: the organization has trouble in the staff, trouble on the Board, and at least the potential for trouble in its finances, which will make it difficult to continue serving this large number of clients and paying this large number of seasonal workers.  As you describe your own position, you are essentially powerless: the Executive Director doesn’t listen to you, the Board is unaware of your concerns, and you don’t want to damage an institution that you care about by involving the authorities.

But that leaves the Nonprofiteer with a question: what, exactly, do you love about an institution with an inept and/or dishonest Executive Director and a Board whose independence may be compromised by its relationship with another organization?  If what you mean is that you love the group’s mission, that’s all very well; but that’s like the Nonprofiteer’s saying she would love her boyfriend if only he were 6’10.”  This is a phenomenon therapists refer to as, “It would be so great, if only it were different.”  It’s not different, and if you have no power to make it so, your only realistic choice is to find another agency to work for: one whose mission you can believe in AND whose governance and management support that mission.

You are best off to find that organization and secure that new job before you leave this one, and certainly before you write any kind of letter to anyone about what you believe and suspect is going on.

It’s rarely worthwhile to burn bridges with that kind of valedictory note—all you get is a reputation as an arsonist, while the people on the other side of the river continue to do what they’ve been doing all along.  But if you feel you need to, you must do some more research to confirm or refute your suspicions.  The Nonprofiteer doesn’t quite grasp the relationship between your agency and the other one for which you think it may serve as a form of tax dodge, so she can’t suggest exactly what you need to find out.  But it would have to be something as clear as your Board members’ being paid by the other organization, which then reduces its own account of taxable profit, for it to be worth taking to the state’s Attorney General.  The very “mis-, mal- or nonfeasance” for which you don’t have evidence is what would be required to cause the authorities to step in.

If you feel you must speak up but don’t have this level of proof, simply write a post-resignation letter to the Board president (with copies to the rest of the Board) laying out only those facts of which you’re certain: that the Executive Director is in the office only 3 hours a week, that she’s using members of the staff to run her personal errands, or whatever the case may be.  If the Board is compromised, though, this won’t make any difference; and if the Board is honest and diligent, it will discover all this about the Executive Director as soon as you leave, because there will be no one available to cover for her by doing all her work.

The Nonprofiteer’s best advice: find a new job, send a one-sentence letter of resignation to the Executive Director, and write an intemperate five-page screed blasting the entire agency, which screed you will then put in your desk drawer or the fireplace.  You’ll have the release of having said everything that needs saying without putting yourself at risk—one of life’s rarest pleasures!

Write again so we know what you do and how it goes.

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Posted in Boards of Directors, Conflict of Interest, Executive Directors, Management Advice Day tip, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Social Service Agencies | Leave a Comment »

Eternal vigilance is the price of—birth control?

February 10, 2012

The lesson from this past week’s Komen/Planned Parenthood contretemps is that when women make our voices heard in defense of the health care we need, we win the argument.

So let’s not hesitate to make just as much noise in response to the hysteria now being whipped up about the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that all health care providers offer free contraception.  Republican rhetoric suggests that this is the equivalent of requiring churches to distribute RU-486 instead of communion wafers; but that’s complete nonsense. Actual religious organizations are exempt. What’s not exempt is the network of hospitals and schools run by those religious organizations.

Hospitals and universities affiliated with religious groups aren’t exempt from the Civil Rights Act. As a result, they’re required to provide health care to women as well as men. Birth control is an essential part of health care for women—a fact you’d think most people would concede, as it’s a way of preventing the abortions they’re so horrified by.

The largest Catholic university in the country already provides birth control as part of its health plan. 28 states already require hospitals and universities to provide this minimum standard of care. If your employer dictates your health plan, and your health plan dictates where you get care—as most plans do—you may be sent to a Catholic hospital regardless of your own beliefs.  Why isn’t it a violation of your religious freedom to be denied the care you need based on someone else’s dogma?

This is just a sketch of the arguments we can and must make, and make loudly, before the noise-makers on the other side take away the health care we’re entitled to and count on.

Write the President, write your Congressperson, write your Senator, write the Secretary of Health and Human Services, write the editor, sign every petition that shows up in your mailbox.   Tell them: don’t compromise our health.

S.O.S.: Save Our Services.  If we don’t do it, no one else will.

Posted in Advocacy, Charitable Choice/Church-State Separation, Current Affairs, Health care, Higher education, Social Service Agencies, Women's Issues | 1 Comment »

Give the people at Komen a piece of your mind . . .

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.

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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 | 6 Comments »

The Nonprofiteer has been wondering what to write about . . .

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.

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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 | 4 Comments »

At war with oneself over the charitable deduction

January 10, 2012

From an article in the New York Times whose date the Nonprofiteer neglected to notice:

“It’s admirable when people back their charitable impulses up with donations,” said Scott Klinger, tax policy director of the group Business for Shared Prosperity.  “But the tax code shouldn’t allow the wealthy the kind of loopholes that let them, essentially, force other taxpayers to underwrite donations to their pet causes.”

“The kind of loopholes . . . “  Is there some other kind?  That is, can we have the tax code encourage individual generosity without delegating to private individuals decisions about what constitutes the public good?  The Nonprofiteer doesn’t see how.  Either you have a tax subsidy—which means by definition that other taxpayers bear a bigger burden—or you don’t. 

Without the subsidy, current donors might give less but the government would have more to give out to public causes (health, education, welfare) now privately supported.  And perhaps without the subsidy, current donors would be replaced by those less-burdened other taxpayers in a burst of their own generosity.  And maybe this would mean fewer snow-globe museums and more attention to human services in the nonprofit sector.

Or maybe it would just mean a reduction in charity and an increase in the government’s resources, which could then be used on public education and public housing.  Or missiles and drones.

This is why the Nonprofiteer remains at war with herself over the charitable deduction.  She wants a thousand flowers to bloom.  She believes any free society requires a counter-balance to whatever the current government has decided about anything.  And she believes this counter-balance requires money.  The whole point of the nonprofit sector is that it permits people to identify and respond to their own needs in their own communities, producing a closer fit between service and community than is possible with centralized programs.

But she also believes that society-wide priorities should be funded society-wide, which means limiting the number of pots of money exempted from inclusion in the public fisc.  And she doesn’t want society-wide priorities to be determined by people who have so much money they can buy entire public school systems and experiment on them.

To quote the great Yul Brenner: Is a puzzlement.

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Posted in Finances, Government grants, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Social Service Agencies | Leave a Comment »

What should (but won’t) be the last word on the charitable tax deduction

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.

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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 »

Of water bills, credit unions and self-help

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.

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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 »

Beyond “Will not!” “Will so!”

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.

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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 »

On Wisconsin! Part II*

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.

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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 »

Charity begins at home—and that means taxes

July 13, 2011

About a month ago the Nonprofiteer received a note from a public relations officer at the Jewish Federations of North America describing the Federations’ opposition to placing caps on tax deductions.  Being well aware that the debt ceiling negotiations are completely out of her control (and probably out of anyone’s control at this point), this letter failed to move the Nonprofiteer to leap to her telephone and urge her Congressbeing to beat back this latest assault on the nonprofit sector.

But it wasn’t mere laziness that kept her from the front lines in this particular battle; it was actual disagreement, based on the letter’s own summary of the horrifying proposal:

Specifically, the Administration has proposed limiting tax benefits for charitable contributions for those earning over $250,000 (married) or $200,000 (single). The tax benefit of all itemized deductions, including charitable contributions, would be capped at 28 percent and the Jewish Federations want the charitable portion to be exempted.

Thus, an extremely modest proposal for assuring that the wealthiest citizens pay some additional portion of our shared tax burden is considered a threat to the health and well-being of the hundreds of thousands of people served by the Jewish Federations.  This, despite the fact that deductibility’s impact on giving is far from clear.

Listen up, gang.   You want to see a threat to health and well-being?  How about cuts in Medicaid, in Medicare, in the Affordable Care Act, in Social Security, in food stamps, in child care, in education?  The fundamental problem of the American economy is that we don’t pay enough in taxes to support the services we very reasonably demand.  We don’t pay nearly as much in taxes as our quite conservative neighbors to the north, or our counterparts in Europe or Japan.  So we don’t have the health care, the educational system or the family support services we need.

Even complete abolition of the charitable deduction wouldn’t make much of a dent in the shortfall we’ve created out of pure political cowardice and foolishness.  The deficit is not the result of social spending but of three simultaneous wars piled on multiple tax cuts.  So the hideous notion of a cap on deductions fails on the Willie Sutton basis: you don’t rob nonprofits because that’s not where the money is.

But.   If there were what Everett Dirksen called “real money” hidden in the charitable deduction for wealthy families, it absolutely should be subject to revision, for the same reason every other deduction and credit and tax dodge should: because those dodges enable the wealthy to pay less than their share, and because this society needs more money than poor people’s taxes provide to continue those services necessary for us to remain a member in good standing of the developed world.

The Jewish Federations’ objection to this proposal—while completely understandable from their perspective—suggests that even the nonprofit sector has become infected with the shortsighted quarter-to-quarter thinking which addles Wall Street.  Rather than consider the long-term good of the society they serve, the Federations are concerned about balancing next year’s budget.  And while the Nonprofiteer doesn’t blame them for that—that’s their job—you’ll pardon her if she sides with (and cites) a different giant of the American Jewish community, Samuel Goldwyn*:

“Include me out.”

———————–

*Per Wikipedia: “In 1916, Goldfish partnered with Broadway producers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn, using a combination of both names to call their movie-making enterprise the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. Seeing an opportunity, Samuel Gelbfisz then had his name legally changed to Samuel Goldwyn, which he used for the rest of his life. “

Could this possibly be because the alternative combination of their names is Selfish?

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Posted in Advocacy, Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Finances, Fundraising, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Social Service Agencies | 5 Comments »

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