Posts Tagged ‘politics’
December 27, 2012
There’s an old joke about a man who asks a woman to sleep with him for $1 million. She agrees, whereupon he asks her to sleep with him for $1. “What kind of a girl do you think I am?” asks the woman indignantly. “We’ve settled that,” replies the man, “We’re just arguing about the price.”
This came to the Nonprofiteer’s mind in response to this story about the price of the Broad Foundation’s generosity to the schools of New Jersey. A recent Broad Foundation grant stipulates that it will be available only as long as Chris Christie remains governor.
The Nonprofiteer has often argued that private philanthropy in education (and other areas) is at best a mixed blessing, because it reflects approval of the notion that public assets should be run according to private preferences. But she never imagined any philanthropy would go this far, offering its generosity only on condition that the public sacrifice its right to choose its own leaders. The question isn’t whether or not Chris Christie is a good governor; the question is whether the Broad Foundation—as opposed to the voters of New Jersey—should get to decide that.
Sure, you can say that no voter is likely to sacrifice his or her rights for a grant of $430,000, but then we’re just arguing about the price. And sure, in form, the voters of New Jersey still hold the power, but the Broad Foundation grant gives them to understand that the cost of exercising their power is losing a lot of money—or, put another way, that the cost of the money is their democratic rights. By comparison, “the vig” (excessive interest rates) charged by organized crime look like a bargain.
Not content with specifying the outcome of an election, the grant’s terms also exempt from disclosure anything having to do with the grant, purporting to provide it with immunity from application of the Federal Freedom of Information Act. Perhaps this was intended to minimize the impact of the grant on voters: What they don’t know can’t influence them. But when the subject of the grant is the most public of concerns—the education of the next generation—a commendable motive doesn’t excuse unacceptable means. Voters need to know on what basis decisions are being made about their schools so that they can change the decision-makers if they disagree. The grant terms are an effort to protect the foundation and its direct beneficiary, the current Republican government of New Jersey, from that straightforward democratic notion.
Defenders of charter schools and other forms of privatization of public schools argue that such restructuring attracts private philanthropy that would not otherwise be available to those schools. That’s probably true, but is that a cost or a benefit? It’s a slippery slope, from good-willed private philanthropy in support of public goals to a system in which private goals predominate—specifically the private goal of eliminating public input (or even public knowledge) from the governance of the public schools.
We could argue about whether the loss of public input would be worth it if the donation were $430 million. But under the current circumstances, just what kind of girl is New Jersey?
A cheap date, apparently.
Tags:501c3, charity, donors, Education, foundations, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, not for profit, philanthropy, politics, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders
Posted in Education, Foundation Hall of Shame/Stupid Foundation Tricks, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Private Philanthropy, Public private partnerships, Relations with funders | 3 Comments »
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, Private Philanthropy, 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, Advocacy, Boards of Directors, charity, foundations, Fundraising, Health care, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, not for profit, politics, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, 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 | 6 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, Boards of Directors, charity, foundations, Fundraising, Health care, Komen, Mission, nonprofit, not for profit, philanthropy, Planned Parenthood, politics, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, 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 | 4 Comments »
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.
Tags:501c3, charity, donors, Fundraising, IRS, Mission, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, not for profit, philanthropy, politics, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, social services
Posted in Finances, Government grants, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Social Service Agencies | 1 Comment »
November 21, 2011
Will anyone reading this blog who was invited to this event, or knows anyone who was, please comment and tell the rest of us what it was supposed to accomplish and what actually happened? Many thanks from the—oh, what’s the term? “Other 99%”?
From the Chronicle of Philanthropy via LinkedIn (emphasis mine):
White House Hosts Meeting on Nonprofit Leadership
November 14, 2011, 5:07 pm
By Lisa Chiu
The White House has invited leaders from about 200 nonprofits to Washington to take part in a daylong program that will focus on the role of nonprofits and how charities can develop effective leaders. The event, which takes place Tuesday at the national office of the American Red Cross and is closed to the public, will feature discussions led by White House officials and business and nonprofit leaders.
Speakers include Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama; Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation; Joshua DuBois, executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; and Kenneth I. Chenault, chief executive of American Express. The White House worked with American Express as well as the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Aspen Institute Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation, the Center for Creative Leadership, Commongood Careers, Independent Sector, and Public Allies to organize the event.
Tags:501c3, charity, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, not for profit, philanthropy, politics
Posted in Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Public private partnerships, Strategic Planning (and the tactical kind, too) | 1 Comment »
November 4, 2011
The Nonprofiteer has never had much time for people who want to change the name of the sector to something non-”non”—something more positive, like “Civil Society Organization,” or less meaningful, like “independent.” But this article about the connection between Herman Cain’s campaign and a Tea Party front group funded by the Koch Brothers has her rethinking her position. Under the headline “Cain to Review Links to a Nonprofit” we learn that
An outside lawyer will review allegations that Herman Cain’s presidential campaign accepted tens of thousands of dollars in goods and services from a tax-exempt organization founded by his chief of staff . . .
The front group, “Americans for Prosperity,” is a Wisconsin nonprofit granted at least preliminary 501c3 recognition by the IRS. And if it were actually nothing more than a group of citizens banded together to advocate for policies they believe will lead to prosperity, there would be nothing wrong with that. But if instead it’s just a mouthpiece for the Koch brothers—an Astroturf, rather than a grassroots, organization—then there is something wrong.
The IRS requires 501c3s to raise a third of their money from the public precisely to prevent the creation of captive organizations of this kind. Use of a tax-exempt entity to promote the interests of a single individual or family is a violation of Federal tax law. Moreover, if the nonprofit paid some of the Cain campaign’s expenses, that’s a violation of Federal election law—perhaps one of the few activities left that is.
The Cain campaign may collapse under the weight of far more interesting allegations (sex beats money every time); but if in fact this nonprofit was nothing more than a campaign slush fund, its existence represents a taint on the “nonprofit” label. What a shame that “handmaiden to profit and to policies assuring that the profitable get more so and the rest of us get squat” is so unwieldy.
Maybe a new name for the sector wouldn’t come amiss; but let’s be realistic. The Iron Law of Euphemisms means that whatever name is adopted instead will soon become an epithet itself. This explains the “progress” in designating African-Americans, from “n****r” to “colored” to “Negro” to “black” to “Black” to “people of color”: as long as people using the term hate the people they’re describing, the term will be infected with their hatred and soon need to be abandoned.
And as long as the wealthiest people using the term “nonprofit” are determined to distort the form to support the worst excesses of the profit-driven world, it hardly matters what the rest of us call it.
Tags:501c3, Advocacy, Americans for Prosperity, Cain, campaign finance, charity, Conflict of Interest, IRS, Koch, Mission, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, not for profit, politics, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Tea Party
Posted in Advocacy, Advocacy groups, Campaign finance, Charity scandals, Coverage of nonprofits, Finances, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders | 6 Comments »
November 2, 2011
Ellen Alberding’s interview with the Chicago Tribune in advance of the Independent Sector‘s meeting in Chicago earlier this week pressed nearly every one of the Nonprofiteer’s buttons. Ms. Alberding, head of the Joyce Foundation, described the Foundation’s approach to what even she characterizes as a perfect storm of increased need and reduced resources in the nonprofit sector:
We do what any good business person would do when faced with reduced resources. We have become very focused on first maintaining support of our core grantees. Foundations are required to spend a minimum amount — 5 percent of our assets. On occasion, we will overspend that in order to keep our grantees whole.
In other words, business as usual. Most likely the Joyce Foundation’s governing documents prevent its Board from spending its assets down to zero, but there’s no reason why the Foundation shouldn’t use more than the statutory minimum 5% of its $800 million in assets to sustain the work it exists to support. Foundations are NOT businesses; they exist to give their money away, and only in some vague theoretical sense is an institution with $800 million facing constraints preventing it from giving away more than $40 million.
If Joyce gave only 6% instead, that would be another $8 million available to nonprofits in its areas of concern—a not-insubstantial 20% increase. What is stopping the Foundation from doing this, other than a misguided sense that preserving its capital is more important than doing its job?
And then the cherry on the sundae:
It’s the position of the Independent Sector that a cap [on charitable deductions] will reduce charitable contributions across the board and diminish support for nonprofit organizations. I believe it’s the administration’s view that the 28 percent cap might have some impact, but it wouldn’t have a dire impact. (But) I think we have to listen to the organizations themselves, who feel otherwise.
In other words, notwithstanding reality, the prejudices of self-interested parties will dictate the organization’s behavior. Their minds are made up—don’t confuse them with the facts. But as President of the organization, doesn’t it behoove Ms. Alberding to make sure her members don’t make their decisions based on fantasy?
Grrrr.
Tags:501c3, Board of Directors, Boards of Directors, charity, Conflict of Interest, donors, Endowment, foundations, Fundraising, grantmaking, grants, IRS, Mission, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, not for profit, philanthropy, politics, Private Philanthropy, recession, Relations with funders
Posted in Boards of Directors, Conflict of Interest, Coverage of nonprofits, Finances, Foundation Hall of Shame/Stupid Foundation Tricks, Fundraising, Investment, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders | 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, Health care, Mission, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, nonprofits, not for profit, politics, Poverty, Racism, 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 »
May 19, 2011
As governments at all levels scramble for resources, the idea of eliminating the charitable deduction from the income tax code has begun to attract support. Many people who work in nonprofits say this would damage the sector, because people would be less inclined to give and those who did give would give less. Let’s assume this is true (though Americans’ passion for voluntary organizations long predates the tax code; Tocqueville, anyone?). Is the health of “the sector” really the relevant concern?
It may be that people will give less to their churches or alma maters or prestige arts organizations if deprived of a tax benefit for doing so. But that money will be in the public treasury, where it will go for health care and education and environmental protection (and even a pittance for the arts). So wouldn’t the goals of nonprofit hospitals and nonprofit schools and environmental nonprofits and arts nonprofits actually be advanced if the government had more to spend on these essential services?
In other words, as with health care, the question isn’t whether people pay; it’s how. You either pay for health care by giving money to an insurance company, or by paying taxes and letting the government insure you. (The latter model, in use in this country only for the aged, produces the greatest efficiencies and greatest satisfaction among patients, families and caregivers; but of course extending it to the rest of the population would set us on the road to serfdom. Hayek himself endorsed public provision of health care, so what are we arguing about, again?)
Likewise, you pay either way for education and schools and environmental protection and so on; it’s just a matter of which pot you’re anteing up in: the private nonprofit or the public.
So there’s a real discussion to be had about whether the charitable deduction is a good idea for the entire sector, or whether in fact social service and social justice nonprofits–-the ones that struggle the most for philanthropic support–-would be better off without deductions but with a bigger public fisc.
(Yes, the money might go for defense, or subsidies for oil companies, or some other boondoggle. It’s our responsibility as citizens to prevent this; tax deductions were not designed to protect us from self-government.)
This is another version of the argument the Nonprofiteer has made elsewhere about the generosity of billionaires versus the reinstatement of a significant inheritance tax. (We Democrats should make a point of calling it “the inheritance tax,” because that’s the whole point: at the moment, people who work for their money pay income taxes on it while people who inherit their money don’t. Or we could call it “the windfall profits tax,” which is what it is: a tax on the windfall profits of people whose only contribution to society is having picked the right parents. And the Nonprofiteer speaks as a windfall recipient.)
When the government collects inheritance taxes it can spend the money on things we as a democratic society think important: health and education and social services and, yes, roads and weapons systems and a bunch of other things about which the Nonprofiteer’s opinions are in the minority. If the government doesn’t collect, billionaires’ offspring can spend the money on the things they as potentates think are important, which might be eradicating malaria and endowing charter schools but which might, yes, be paying scholars to produce support for the elimination of public education or the abolition of all regulation, or even paying legislators directly for said elimination and abolition.
The tax code is designed to provide the government with resources to do its job. Its job, among other things, is to provide essential services to citizens who cannot provide those services for themselves; and the more money it collects, the more services it can provide. What’s important is that those services get provided, not that they get provided by the sector that happens to employ the Nonprofiteer.
So the question here is not, “Is it good for the sector?” but “Is it good for social welfare and social justice?” The answer is not clear-–crunching the numbers would be a huge job for which the Nonprofiteer is totally unqualified-–but let’s make sure we’re asking the right question.
Tags:501c3, donors, Health care, IRS, nonprofit, Nonprofit management, nonprofits, not for profit, philanthropy, politics, Poverty, Private Philanthropy, social services
Posted in Health care, Insurance, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Philanthropy and Taxation, Private Philanthropy, Public private partnerships, Social Service Agencies | 9 Comments »
