Nonprofits - You've Got Them All Wrong

Turns out churches do feed the hungry, clothe the naked and
care for the widows, orphans, and people with disabilities.

 

Some trouble-maker posted a question on Facebook today, no doubt hoping to stir up a hornets nest.  The question?

• Should churches be tax exempt? 

The outcry from the left was instantaneous and predictably lop-sided. These precious snowflake progressives cried out loudly that churches should only maybe be allowed exemption for the actual feeding the poor and sheltering the homeless they did and NOTHING else. This reveals a stunning lack of understanding of what churches do and what a nonprofit is and why they are tax exempt. Let me 'splain...

 

First of all, not every 501(c)(3) tax exempt nonprofit is involved in feeding the poor and sheltering the homeless. If that were the criteria for tax exempt status, you'd have to shut down most of the nonprofits in the United States. Here's what the regulation for tax exemption says:

• To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual.

There are, of course, other 501(c) nonprofit organizations that have different requirements, but for this question we're talking about churches. A 501(c)(3) organization may be tax exempt if its primary activities are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering amateur sports competition, preventing cruelty to children, or preventing cruelty to animals.

 

The United States Government has determined that it is far less expensive to defer taxes to groups which perform these types of activities than it is for the government to do them. I might add that it's a danged sight more effective too. It's far easier for groups of local folk to identify community needs and problems and create programs and organizations to deal with them than it is for a bunch of politicians thousands of miles away in Washington DC to guess what those needs might be and create a one-size-fits-all government program to solve all those unique local problems. It's the "if all you've got is a hammer everything looks like a nail" conundrum.

 
Nonprofits perform missions on behalf of groups of people that are working for the betterment of their community in some way. Some provide counseling to those with mental illness or those who are bereaved. The church does this too. Some NPOs provide recreation for the disabled or for groups of individuals who have a shared interest. The American Legion and VFW are nonprofits that provide a lot of support for their members in a lot of areas. 

 

Recently Obama's IRS went after veteran's organizations because they had balked at providing private information about their members that the IRS is not supposed to be privvy to - like social security numbers and private information of that sort. The VFW and American Legion both felt they did not want to be responsible for recording their members social security data. 

 

Groups like Sierra Club get tax breaks for a portion of their work that is not direct lobbying even though their primary purpose is actually lobbying. They and the World Wildlife Fund spend surprisingly little on actual animals. Mostly they pay lawyers. They get around that by providing legislators with "educational material". They neither feed nor house the homeless so, by the reasoning of the anti-church contingent, they should be taxed on pretty much everything they do.

Churches do many things, often more efficiently than the government. Food pantries in my home state did so well that the feds cut the Food Stamp budget for East Texas by $800,000. The local bureaucrats had a fit and started a $150,000 marketing campaign with the message "Food Stamps are not part of welfare reform." Turned out they just needed more application. It's not like they were going to lower the threshhold for admittance to the program or approve any more application. They just wanted to demonstrate "need" so they could get their budget increased so they wouldn't have to lay off a bunch of suddenly useless bureaucrats.

Churches minister to the spiritual needs of their congregations. You may, instead, prefer to rescue abandoned gerbils, donkeys, tigers elephants or boa constrictors. There's a nonprofit for each of those. You may want to host Renaissance Faires to promote chivalry. There's a nonprofit for that. You may want to save the whales, the owls, or the art of quilt-making. There's a nonprofit for that.

 

The point of having nonprofits be tax exempt is to allow Americans to band together for a cause they mutually believe in, collect a few assets with which to perform their mission, and to do some good without the tax man getting all up in your business and taking from money from you that people gave you to do something else with. The group's members and supporters, wise heads in government (an oxymoron if there ever was one) decided that these sorts of endeavors were things which should not be taxed.

Being not-for-profit has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with the fact that no profit is distributed to stakeholders, board members or shareholders. Every penny gets plowed back into the work. If you aren't making a profit and doing those things listed above, then you are and should be tax exempt and it doesn't matter whether I like what you are doing or not so long as your supporters do.

 

You may dislike religion. You may just dislike my religion. So what? I'm not fond of snakes, but I will defend to the death, your right to rescue them without being taxed for your selflessness. Sometimes I think some of my liberal friends have forgotten that it's not all about what they like or want. Some people may like or want different things than you like or want. That doesn't mean you get to punish them by taxing them or banning their activities. I'm not a fan of some environmentalist groups. They still get to exist and they still get to try and do good things that they think ought to be done. Heck, I might even show up with a trash bag for one of their beach cleanups. We don't have to be enemies simply because we differ on how to solve a problem we both often agree needs to be solved. You don't have to like me or my opinion. You just have to leave me be to have it as I leave you be to have your opinion, however wrong-headed it might be.

 

So, if you happen to be driving by my church on Saturday morning and see me there, and don't like it, guess what?  You can keep on driving and neither your rights nor mine, neither your enjoyment of the day nor mine needs be threatened.  Live and let live is a pretty good motto. Otherwise you could find the IRS taxing you for saving spotted owls and snail darters. They tend to take a mile if you give them an inch.

© 2017 by Tom King

Guidestar, "Neutral" Arbiter of Nonprofits, Swings Openly Left

The venerable* nonprofit organization rating website Guidestar has apparently become comfortable enough with its venerableness to openly shift to the left. This week it came out with a list of "hate group"nonprofit organizations that was long on conservative values and short on actual hate. Not surprising given that the list came from the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that would be genuinely surprised that anyone would NOT consider virtually any conservative Christian nonprofit organization a hate group. SPLC's definition of "hate" seems to be anything that disagrees with the progressive agenda. One Target  on SPLC's list is the American Family Association, a conservative Christian group that opposes redefining marriage, promotes Christian values, and opposes pornography, transgender bathrooms, and abortion. This according to SPLC and now Guidestar makes it a hate group.

Let the pandering to the socialist left begin....

As a semi-retired nonprofit professional, I read trade publications for the industry and utilize websites like Guidestar. Mostly I'm trying to keep organizations I consult with out of hot water with rating sites like Guidestar. Guidestar's raison d'être is ostensibly to serve as a guide to philanthropists, donors, and funding organizations as to the fiscal health and financial responsibility of nonprofit organizations that approach them for donations. Guidestar has, over time, become the most powerful arbiter of legitimacy in the nonprofit world.

Now that it has that power, like other "venerable" nonprofit journals I won't name, Guidestar's leftist underpinnings are beginning to show. One would think that a nonprofit organization should be judged by whether or not it is responsible with its funding and whether it is accomplishing its mission. If it's mission is to promote the creation of a socialist/communist state in America, so be it. Does it accomplish that mission? If you support that mission, then that's something you will want to know before you give them money.

As to the value of that mission, Guidestar should have no judgmental power, at least if it is going to claim "neutrality" in its assessment of America's not for profits. It is not Guidestar's business to arbitrarily apply labels like "hate group" to the charities it rates, especially when their criteria appears to be that the group is conservative. Otherwise, Guidestar needs to label itself "The Liberal Guidestar" in the interest of full disclosure.

I'm just saying.

© 2017 by Tom King

* Or at least as venerable as anything gets in the digital age.

Building Sidewalks

Sidewalks don't need to be this fancy or expensive
nor require a federal grant or expensive "program".
Just build the danged sidewalk!

Community "Issues" Aren't Always What the Community Organizers Tell You They Are

One forgets sometimes how insular is the life of many a pundit, reporter, editor and publisher that we rely on for information and opinion in our daily news consumption. I saw a case in point this morning in an email from Ruth McCambridge, editor of The Nonprofit Quarterly. She was announcing the addition of a new cadre of on-the-ground reporters to broaden the coverage of nonprofit activities in the Good Old U.S. of A. and explained a bit about what she saw as their role in the new and improved NPQ.

• We believe in the intelligence of those who are doing and negotiating the grounded work in communities. You are the ones who have to understand the patterns of your operating environments—what it will mean if this philanthropic leader leaves her post, or if that organization embarrasses itself, or if such and such city decides that the CDBG money is needed for sidewalk repair instead of housing. You watch all of these interconnected dynamics, and if you are worth your salt, sometimes you understand what that will mean for the work you do. 

Ruth has an excellent point. The only thing dangerous is in listening to only one of those on-the-ground voices. I suspect that, given the left lean of NPQ, that the editorial staff may jump on reporting by on-the-ground voices which echo their own sentiments before they accept opposing voices. They may not even hear opposing voices, I suspect, as many of those on-the-ground voices don't even read NPQ or know that they are looking to hear such voices.

To be fair, NPQ has attempted to report opposing viewpoints. They've even published articles by me (unpaid, of course), so they can claim to include views from both sides of the political spectrum – me being unabashedly conservative and all. Even then, there is a danger of getting things wrong. That's why reporters who really do want to get their facts straight and unbiased should probably, almost always, do a part 2 to any controversial article in which they do follow up investigation with reference to the criticism their first article received in the comments section. That's how I'd do it if I were the editor.

Case in point: McCambridge mentions an issue in which the city decides that Community Development Block Grant money is used for sidewalk repair instead of housing. CDBG is a federal block grant for cities. Cities have relatively broad latitude so far as what to do with CDBG funds. Housing is one of the areas CDBG goes for. Transportation is another. Infrastructure repair and upgrade is another. While a lot of community activists might get their hackles up if money were diverted to sidewalk building and repair instead of housing and let out a howl, it would be wise for any reporter tempted to wax critical of the city to stop and take a deep breath and TALK TO SOMEBODY ELSE.

I worked as a transportation activist in a small urban center where this issue came up. The city was originally laid out along old trails and cowpaths. Roads were narrow and, as it was Texas, house lots were large. As cars came along, roads were widened, but there was a limit to how far you could widen them. In the oldest part of town, there were sidewalks that connected the neighborhoods that surrounded the city center to the old Interurban trolley stops. Citizens who wanted to go anywhere, walked to the trolley stop on sidewalks that kept them up out of the horse manure and mud. Once the Interurbans were shut down and everyone began to drive cars, roads and new suburban neighborhoods went up. No one thought much about poverty and disability during the oil boom years because it wasn't much of an issue. No one needed sidewalks because they drove cars, so sidewalks were deemed an expensive luxury that nobody would use.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Jogging is popular. Twenty-five percent of the adult population cannot drive because they are elderly or disabled. More people live through accidents with disabilities thanks to modern medicine. They can get motorized chairs and scooters, city buses are accessible, but people with disabilities have to drive their scooters in the street to get to the bus stops because there are no sidewalks or curb cuts throughout most of the city. While all city buses are wheelchair accessible, the bus stops are miles away from many older neighborhoods and accessible bus service is expensive. In my town, housing was important and the housing advocates shouted down any idea of improving the sidewalks or worse building new ones.

It was hard to make people see that $2000 worth of asphalted trails or concrete sidewalks could, in time, save the city many more thousands of dollars annually by creating a safe path for elderly, low-income and disabled individuals to get to the bus routes without having to call for expensive para-transit buses. In addition, the sidewalk network would mean that instead of waiting for the city to build expensive accessible housing for seniors and people with disabilities, a majority of them could remain in their own homes and access goods and services they need by sidewalk and bus at very low cost to both the users and the city. I hope that NPQ and other news agencies who report on community issues and activities will take the time to think outside the usual liberal activist box. Sometimes there are other ways to do things than simply by squabbling over who gets what federal funds. Communities often come up with very powerful solutions all on their own without any advice at all from the graybeards in Washington DC.

My friend Darrel, for instance, lived in a small East Texas town with lots of old people living around the area. Most were on fixed incomes. Many were fast losing the ability to drive. Darrel got busy, rounded up some old school buses and with the help of the local churches, began running a twice a month "trip to town" for retirees on the dates that social security and VA checks came out. They'd pick them up early in the morning. Walmart would host a bingo tournament in the McDonald's providing the game callers and even some prizes. The bank inside the Walmart had a bank location, a beauty salon, a pharmacy and Walmart's wide selection of grocery and retail goods. If the folk wanted to visit downtown or any other stores, the volunteer driver's were very flexible. They even rigged one of the buses to be wheelchair accessible. The thing ran until Darrel's death and I think may be running yet. They didn't get any federal money. Each church adopted and shared a bus. They didn’t charge a thing to passengers. Drivers were all volunteers. They did things that the "official" rural transit system refused to do or claimed was impossible.

Those are the "Little Engine That Could" kind of stories I'd like to see NPQ and other media report on. The only thing is that most of such organizations that do what Darrel (not his real name) did don't want the publicity lest some activist spot them and report them for not doing it the "right" way. What they usually mean by that is the way that brings in federal or state dollars that they can control. Forgive me for being a cynic, but 40 years in the nonprofit sector has taught me that.

As a member of the local disability issues review board in my town, I once suggested what I thought was a clever and economical solution to a disability issue we were discussing. The other members, more seasoned fellows than myself, told me it would never work.

 "Why?" I asked

 "Because," they answered, "It makes too much sense."

 Which is why I've changed my status from that of nonprofit professional to nonprofit amateur.

© 2014 by Tom King

Greedy Nonprofits? The Campaign to get "Big Charity"

Of course, big is always bad in Rainbow Unicorn Land where the folk who fancy themselves the non-one percenters dwell. The chart above is circulating the Internet and it's absolutely full of crap. It targets charity powerhouses like the Red Cross, Goodwill and March of Dimes.

It seems there is a concerted effort going on to take down some of the bigger charities like the Red Cross and United Way and especially Goodwill. Notice they don't mention the Sierra Club, World Wildlife Federation, Greenpeace or Harvard University - notable lefty favorites whose directors aren't exactly struggling to make ends meet. It's all a huge scam designed to distort the record and "take down" what the people who go around spouting about Big Oil and Big Pharma and Big Ag think is another "Big" conspiracy against the little guys. And it's another load of BS. Truth is that these guys they are attacking are essential help for the little guys and without them a lot of little guys would be in a very bad way.

Take MARCH of Dimes, which they claim doesn't give the money to "the needy". March of Dimes has never given money to the needy. They never pretended to. March of Dimes donations go to research to prevent birth defects and premature births. And yes, Virginia, the physicians and scientist who are paid to do this research do get paid more than $13,0000.

These clowns that are trying to take down "Big Charity" are largely progressive socialists and, of course, they would rather you abort the "fetus" and simply try again later. They certainly would object to wasting money on trying to actually save babies and prevent birth defects and stillbirths. 

United Way helps primarily small local charities which address local issues. United Way provides valuable fund-raising support for charities who can't afford a big development department and would rather do the work than spend half their time throwing golf tournaments and garage sales. I've worked with United Way and they really do provide essential support for small charities. Without UW, many smaller targeted charities simply couldn't exist. AND They can do this BECAUSE THEY ARE SO DAMNED BIG. 

Goodwill helps people with developmental disabilities to have a job and earn their own money so they are not totally dependent on an allowance from their moms or from state programs. The do VERY good work. It's true their "employees" don't make a living wage. That's because most are on disability and can't afford to make even a tiny bit too much or they lose their government support. Most have serious developmental problems and could hold no other job in a competitive business. If they work hard they make better pay depending on their ability in many Goodwill run workshops and industries. This allows them to pay for recreation, personal things and other "extras" beyond the subsistence level income and support they get from Uncle Sam and the state. And their so-called "facts" about Goodwill are very badly distorted.

The fact that a nonprofit CEO doesn't take a salary or that 100% of your donations go to this or that "program doesn't mean some donor isn't paying someone a salary to manage the program. Even six figure CEOs of nonprofits are very likely to receive a salary rather lower than what a CEO in the private sector would get to manage a company of the same side. And most receive WAY below what a government bureaucrat gets paid by taxpayers for the same job or one with far less responsibility - that is if anyone in government civil service ever is held responsible for anything they do.

Scripture says, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." Not every nonprofit CEO is a trust fund baby and can write off a salary or take some ridiculously low paycheck. The Red Cross president is managing a company with an annual budget in the hundreds of millions. She makes that happen year after year and the Red Cross gets a lot more bang for the buck out of her salary than some of the "good charities" listed below do, though all of them might be quite good charities themselves and do lots of good..

And some of the ones with ridiculously low CEO salaries or guarantees that 100% of your donation goes to programs simply set up the books so that admin costs are covered by an endowment or a generous donor. Their people get paid.

St. Jude's staff, for instance, do get paid, don't kid yourself and paid well. They live off an endowment for admin costs that Danny Thomas raised for them years ago.  AND the docs' and nurses' paychecks are actually, part of what your donations go toward. So they can say with all honest that 100% of YOUR donations go to "fight childhood cancer". They don't say 100% of everyone's donation does. There's nothing wrong with that. They are simply creating a donation path where you can pay what you want to and screw those nasty old administrators.

Many CEOs that receive $0 paychecks are figureheads only (so they can say they don't get paid and the real work gets done by underlings). Some CEOs are paid by other entities and serve as head of a charity as well. Many have relatively little to do, but it looks good that they don't get paid. Some CEOs are retired rich guys (one percenters - the kind the president wants to take all their money from to make things "equitable").

This list is really deceptive and should not be trusted. The only way to find out if a charity is a good one is to get involved with it and find out if they do good work or not.

Just sayin' (and I have 4 decades' experience in the nonprofit sector).

© 2014 by Tom King

NP Quarterly Takes a Swipe at Another Conservative Philanthropist

Got my Nonprofit Quarterly today and found an article entitled, "Art Pope, Bankroller of North Carolina's Republican Agenda, Tells All" by Jeff Cohen. I read it with interest, thinking to hear Mr. Pope's side of the issue. Instead I was directed to a New Yorker piece by Jane Mayer that did everything BUT give Mr. Pope's side of the issue.



Art Pope during his days as a NC Legislator

 Mr. Cohen meanwhile suggested the New Yorker piece would tell you what made Art Pope "tick". It doesn't. Mr. Cohen tried to sound fair, but he did manage to get in a couple of comparison's to the Koch Brothers and used perjorative words like "secretive" and "tea party" (at least tea party is perjorative to liberals, many of whom apparently subscribe to NPQ).  Interesting that Mr. Cohen never touches on the overwhelming contributions by individual liberal cause-funders, many of whom dwarf what conservatives like Pope or the Kochs spend.

In a Newsobserver.com story by Rob Christensen about Mr. Pope, Christensen quotes veteran Raleigh political analyst, John Davis. "The Democrats have always had the ability to win the close races because they outspend the Republicans 3-1, 4-1, 5-1. That disparity has been eliminated by the new independent expenditure laws," Davis said. "I know the Democrats are frustrated by the fact that they can no longer run over Republicans with their financial advantage, but frankly they have had an undue influence over the legislative politics of this state for decades because they were able to get extraordinary financial advantage."

Davis adds, "Money flows to power, and Democrats have always had the power - the president pro tem of the Senate, the speaker of the House and the governor," Davis goes on to say. "There has never been anyone to stand up to the union support for the Democratic Party and the business support for the Democratic Party,"

Pope, himself, says. "Part of my decision to give more than usual is to try to offset the advantages that the Democratic Party has."

Pope believes his political contributions should be seen in the context of his family's larger philanthropy on a wide range of community projects such as $1 million for a new hospice building and $1 million to help move the new Campbell University law school to downtown Raleigh. His family also gives to local universities, food banks and indigent health care.

"What we give politically," Pope points out, "Is a fraction of what we give to charity,"

The New Yorker story is typically pro-Democrat and basically spends its ink whining because Pope, a North Carolinian with experience as an elected North Carolina legislator, is spending money to help break the hold of Democrats on power in North Carolina.

It's ironic that those who claim to believe so strongly in "diversity", object so strongly to a publicly expressed second opinion when it comes to politics.

Cohen, in the Nonprofit Quarterly article, of course, gets in a shot at the evil Koch brothers who actually have donated to Democrats and to organizations with liberal leanings. He fails, however, to touch on the obvious other side of the coin, avoiding mention of pro-liberal agenda philanthropists like conservative bugbear George Soros, whose charitable contributions are almost entirely about driving a political agenda. Soros and other big name billionaires spend folk like the Koch brothers and Art Pope under the table on political agenda driving.

So, why don't we hear any complaints about attempts by progressives to "buy the government", especially in a publication that bills itself as the Harvard Business Review of the nonprofit world and is supposed to be politically neutral?

The simple answer is, because folk like Jane Mayer and Jeff Cohen approve of money driving agendas, so long as the agenda is one with which they agree - specifically larger government. Since the objective of the conservative groups the Pope Family is funding is limited government, Pope draws the wrath of those who currently have a huge stake in growing their political power. Pope has further angered liberal media pundits and North Carolina Democrats by helping organize and sponsor Tea Party rallies and meetings around the state. (Insert gasp here!)

In the meantime, I don't suppose the nonprofits that are receiving Pope checks are complaining that the Pope family are driving a pro-education/pro-healthcare/anti-poverty agenda with their funding of hospital indigent care programs, hospices, universities and food banks.
Democrats claim Pope supports candidates that are "bad for North Carolina". While it's true that more elected Republicans might certainly be bad for North Carolina Democrats, others, Pope among them, cite the recent record of Democratic rule as one of failure - including corruption cases, a broken probation system, a troubled mental health system, a high school dropout rate, a recent tax hike, and budget problems.

As Pope points out, two senate candidates in recent years Democratic Senate candidates John Edwards and Erskine Bowles each spent far more of their own money on their campaigns than Art Pope has put into North Carolina conservative political groups.  If Art Pope is buying the state, as Ms. Mayer claims, he's going to have to come up with far more than he has so far, because his political adversaries are still out-spending him and have been for a very, very long time.

None of the article I read were by conservatives. The Newsobserver article was at least balanced and gave both sides of the story, allowing the reader to decide what to believe about Art Pope. The American system allows for dissent by American citizens. Perhaps, in recommending an article like the one Cohen gushes over in the New Yorker, Nonprofit Quarterly should also include a link to something that at least gives the other side of the story. Pope may be bad for Dems, but he apparently is generous with nonprofits. The question I'd ask?  Is Nonprofit Quarterly about what's good for a liberal political agenda or what's good for funding our nonprofits?

If it's about funding worthy causes, the Pope Family Foundation certainly deserves a pat on the back for its stewardship whatever you think of its politics.

(c) 2011 by Tom King

Sauce for the Gander

Should Groups That Proselytize Receive Charitable Funds

by Tom King

ADRA Disaster Worker

Google has decided to cut charitable funding through grants to churches that "proselytize". Erwin DeLeon, the article's author says churches and religious organizations shouldn't be surprised because after all, "Aren’t churches the first ones to exclude those who disagree or challenge their beliefs and those with lifestyles they judge sinful?"

Well, no, Erwin. They aren't.

Erwin goes on to excuse Google, saying the company simply desires to "employ its technology for the greater good. And that includes disadvantaged populations and those that are discriminated against by exclusionary groups such as some faith-based organizations."  

DeLeon, seems to be saying that faith-based organizations routinely discriminate against and exclude disadvantaged populations.  Like most reporters these days, Mr. DeLeon demonstrates a staggering ignorance of the vast scope of Christian charity work. Whenever there is a disaster, it's religious-based groups like Salvation Army, Adventist Disaster and Relief Agency, Mercy Ships and the Red Cross (where do you think the cross came from) that typically show up on the scene ahead of FEMA. Christian Americans give more to worldwide relief work than the federal government and such help more often goes to the actual people who need it rather than to warlords and corrupt third world politicians as so much of US government largesse.

Christians may view some behaviors as sin, but that does not prevent us from offering aid and comfort to all people regardless of their age, race, religion, sexual preference, cultural or ethnic background. Sure we still call a sin a sin, but that doesn't mean we don't offer help to folk who need it. Our exclusion of those who differ from us is primarily self-exclusion. Why would anyone want to belong to a group that doesn't believe the way they do and which views their behavior as "sinful" unless, of course, they want to change that behavior. It's like my relationship with Greenpeace. While I may share some values with them, I don't support their organization and would not belong even though I get mail from them all the time asking me to join up and donate money.

Isn't that proselytizing of the worst sort?

And if proselytizing is a bad thing, then what about Sierra Club, The World Wildlife Federation and Greenpeace? Are you going to exclude them from receiving funds too. They do, after all, openly proselytize people to join their cause. They display bumper stickers, hold revival meetings and chant slogans in support of ideas taken largely on faith (given the recent troubles the global warming folk have had with their data lately).

Seems to me that what's sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander.

(c) 2011 by Tom King 

Uncle Sam Becomes a Charity Case

Nonprofit Quarterly ran a recent article called "Weird Philanthropy: Donors Give to the National Debt".  The magazine expressed its befuddlement at the spate of donations to the federal government to help reduce the national debt. The amounts are not substantial, averaging $20-30 for the most part with the "occasional six-figure contribution. The notoriously left-leaning Quarterly wondered in its article what sort of "metrics" these donors were using to judge the effectiveness of these donations and argued that the money would just "go into the general fund" anyway.

It's fascinating how liberals say they like bigger government so long as they're hauling down nice fat grants from the fed. When their own donors start giving to Uncle Sam, though, the complaining begins, because even they realize that public philanthropies don't waste money like the government. They're likely thinking, that all that money will just get flushed down the bureaucratic crapper, when it could go to a nonprofit organization where it would actually do some good.

Recently, conservative talk show hosts, pundits and politicians have challenged pro-tax liberals saying, "If you believe the government is the best manager of welfare programs and you believe you are not being taxed enough, you can always give the amount you believe you are being under-taxed directly to the government."


Apparently, some folks are taking them up on the challenge and putting, at least a bit of their money where their mouth is. It would be bad news for nonprofits in general if the trend were to spread, but the lion's share of giving to charity seems to be coming from faith-based and conservative givers. Most of these folks, many of whom give ten percent or more of their income to charities and churches, have a less rosey view of the federal government as an efficient and effective purveyor of charitable programs and funding.

The average ten percent giver is unlikely to jump on the bandwagon on this one. The gifts to Uncle Sam up to this point appear more symbolic than substantial and given the small amounts, these folk apparently don't think they are underpaying their taxes by very much.

So, next time a pro-tax liberal tells you he is under-taxed and that he does give extra to the federal government, ask him, "How much?"

Tom King

Digging Out the Speck - Nonprofit Quarterly Questions Beck/Palin Associates

Nonprofit Quarterly's Jeff Cohen this week wrote a piece this week about "Glenn Beck's Nonprofit Ties" that had surprisingly little to say about Beck's ties. Cohen wrote, "....some of the lesser known players wandering past the dais at Beck’s Restoring Honor gathering last week should be of interest to the nonprofit sector if they have questions about the nonprofit values underlying the rally." Jeff had to do some serious digging to find the wisp of dirt he "uncovered". 

His concern was about two players, members of Beck's so-called Black Robe Regiment, Pastor John Hagee, a fiery San Antonio-based preacher who believes the Apocalypse is upon us and Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Apparently, Hagee has a poor opinion of the Catholic Church as an organization and Lapin was once friends with former shady lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. The list of sordidness can be found here. It's mild sordidness by usual Washington DC standards and drags us clear to the Marianas, over to a parochial school in Maryland and "by association" to former Republican Congressman Tom DeLay. It's petty, to say the least, and doesn't list any actual indictments or criminal charges that have been incurred by Rabbi Lapin or Reverend Hagee due to their opinions or friendships. According to Cohen, they are apparently shady characters because of their opinions and friends. 

Look, Hagee is entitled to his opinion re: the Roman Catholics Church whether any of us agree with it or not, and Hagee, himself, denies any animus toward individual Catholics. His problem is with the church organization itself and he is entitled to that opinion. The Catholic Church certainly has opinions about non-Catholics like Hagee and me (did you know, for instance, the Pope holds the opinion that non-Catholics like Hagee and me will burn in hell forever-tortured for our sins in pain for all eternity). Despite my own repugnance at that idea, I think the Pope is entitled to his opinion and to teach it in Catholic churches. Then there's the whole Spanish Inquisition thing, Joan of Arc, Huss, Jerome, Wycliffe, Galileo and others running a centuries long history of church sponsored violence and bloodshed. Hagee didn't have to search nearly as hard as you did to find that sort of dirt on the Catholic Church and isn't that what this article was - a dirt-digging expedition? Wasn't Cohen's article designed chiefly to cast aspersions on Beck and Palin and to impugn the motives of the folks at the Rally?  It certainly seemed that way to me.

Other pastors there have as harsh an opinion of Hagee and his church as he does of some of theirs. But this wasn't about religious opinions. The point of the day was that people like Rev. Hagee could stand side by side with people of many faiths in support of a common set of values - free speech, free assembly, free religion, free press, free economy, etc.. That was a monumentally significant gathering of diverse and peaceful people. No violence at all. Even those who came to incite violence were surrounded quickly by peaceful participants and when they couldn't get a fight started, they became quiet and drifted away.

These were nice people at the rally, up front and in the audience; regular folks from every economic strata, every culture, every race and religion (there were Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Buddhists in the crowd and on stage). They agree that we should return to the values we once espoused in this country, no matter how imperfectly we may have practiced those values. Maybe we'll get it better this time, who knows? But it was a stunning achievement AND it raised a bunch of money for the foundation. I defy you to check out the backgrounds of the leaders and organizers of a typical mall "rally" and find a pristine record of personal ethical behavior, let alone ethical behavior by organizations at second and third remove or folks who happened to wander by the dais.

You certainly won't have to go to the Marianas and, "by extension" to a congressman you don't like, to find corruption. If you are going to look for a speck of sawdust in your neighbor's eye, you might want to check out the log sticking out of your own side's collective eyes. I could name names and connections, but this comment is not about "we said, they said". It's about a fair treatment of everyone. If you are going to select folks "wandering past the dais" as brushes with which to negatively paint Beck and Palin and the whole Restoring Honor Rally, then I challenge you to review with the same intensity the backgrounds of say, the folks who performed at the big concert for 9/11 families, or the organizers of Al Sharton's “Reclaim the Dream” Rally held just down the street on 8/28. Otherwise you appear biased towards a political view and I thought Nonprofit Quarterly was, at least in part, about holding Nonprofits to a higher ethical standard.

I don't think the Special Operations Warriors Foundation did anything wrong, even by association and they were the recipients of the funds raised. Their wrongdoing would be relevant to Nonprofit Quarterly. I don't see how someone who offered prayer or presented an award have anything to do with the ethics of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin anyway.  Lots of folks with unsavory pasts help raise money for U.S. charities and I haven’t seen a lot of complaints at the Nonprofit Quarterly (I could have missed them). The people cited as fishy in this article had no control over or financial ties to the Rally which was, in essence, a fund-raising event. The fact that someone with a connection to a nonprofit has in the past got hooked up with something that may or may not have been ethical has nothing to do with the rally or the foundation’s ethics. I defy almost anyone with a long history in nonprofit and fund-raising work, not to have taken funding from or made an association or connection to something or someone that could be considered shady.

Does that then condemn you to eternal separation from nonprofit fund-raising activities if someone "wanders by the dais" who has a blot on his or her past? If so, the ranks of nonprofit leadership would rapidly be decimated. We can, at best, try to insure we, ourselves, and our organizations behave in an ethical manner. We can turn down money from shady sources. But what our brothers, our volunteers or our partner agencies do outside our events and programs is beyond our power to control. Have you ever been outvoted on a board of directors and stayed to try to correct the error you believed your brother and sister board members were making? If we cut and run, resigning every time there's a problem, we aren't being ethical, we're being cowards. There is a time to dig in our heels and stand for what’s right. We shouldn’t be tarnished for doing so. If we want brave and ethical people at the helm of our nonprofits, we should be a little more reluctant to rush to tarnish reputations on no more than what is "guilt by association".

I think it's irresponsible to do these kinds of snarky hit pieces if you are a website and newsletter promoting ethics among nonprofits. If you have evidence of wrongdoing against the Rally organizers, Beck or Palin, fine. Give evidence.  If someone is misappropriating money, okay. Show us how. But all these charges amount to are an attempt to throw mud.  This type of one-sided "journalism" opens Nonprofit Quarterly up to charges of bias towards a single political viewpoint, to witch-hunting and to light slander (in my church they call it gossip).

Had Mr. Cohen continued with a broad examination of the ethics of the leaders of these kinds of fund-raising rallies, he'd have had a fair article.  This was a hit piece, nothing more and a poorly aimed one.

I'm just telling it like I see it.

Tom King

* Al Sharpton image from The Austin-American Statesman: