It’s been a week since the bombshell admission by IRS Exempt Organizations (EO) Director Lois Lerner that the IRS had targeted for special scrutiny conservative groups seeking tax-exempt recognition under Section 501(c)4 of the Internal Revenue Code. NPQ has been reporting on this all week, and the story has moved so fast that the Treasury Department investigation report that precipitated the furor has almost been lost in the rush.

Last week NPQ reported that Komen’s Nancy Brinker received a 64% increase in pay between the period covered by 2011 990 and that covered by the 2012. And now we see that lobbying expenditures for the first quarter of 2013 were almost nonexistent – what is going on there?

Nonprofit Quarterly offers a roundup of the latest changes and news regarding the IRS targeting scandal.

The firestorm unleashed by Friday’s admission by IRS officials that the agency had targeted some applications for tax-exempt recognition based on political keywords like “conservative” and “Tea Party” continues.

Buy the building and keep the name? The YMCA begs to disagree.

By its own admission, between 2010 and 2012, the IRS subjected groups to extra scrutiny based on buzzwords like “tea party” and “patriot” in their names. We would love to hear from you on this turn of events. What should be the nonprofit sector’s response?

Can there be greater strength in fewer numbers for Jewish communities that are no longer able to support separate houses of worship for each of their sharply divided denominations?

Joan Hecht’s work with the Lost Boys of Sudan reminds us of the continuing tragedy of the Darfur region of the Sudan and the inadequate responses of other countries—including our own. 

Howard Husock says that preventing future calamities like the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh should be addressed by improving government, rather than corporate manufacturers. We say he’s half-right.

An unusual Alabama law threatens the operation of nonprofit spay/neuter clinics…and a new bill in the state senate could make things worse.

As their country considers an exit from the United Kingdom, Scots charities find themselves wary of taking action that could threaten their mandated apolitical stance.

The ability for same-sex couples to sponsor foreign-born partners for green cards may be the sticking point for the immigration bill.

Melinda Gates reflects on her encounters in Senegal, and on an activist’s profound struggle against female genital cutting.

Are Governor McCrory, Art Pope, and the Republican leaders of the North Carolina state legislature turning the Tar Heel State into a corporate playground?

What would happen if money for aid were not filtered through NGOs, but given to poor people directly?

Much of the most valuable programs and services of the federal government are delivered by nonprofits. That goes double for U.S. humanitarian and development assistance, where NGOs are critical players in delivering foreign aid to countries in need. Shouldn’t the USAID budget be a top priority advocacy item for the U.S. nonprofit sector?

How a $600M for-profit chain was rescued by a smaller group of nonprofits, given a new social purpose, and returned to surplus.

Most who think of nonprofit assistance in urban areas focus on assisting residents who are in cities by their own choice. But imagine if your nonprofit were assisting urban residents who are in cities as refugees.

NPQ has always cautioned that ignoring your public policy context is akin to turning over the keys to your house and having to ask permission to sleep on the couch. And of all the aspects of your public policy context, the scaffolding of tax structures is king

The AAAS takes a controversial stand against academic institutions in Israel, in protest of the treatment of Palestinian students.

It’s a sign of changing times: a Republican political action committee dedicated to the advocacy of same-sex marriage.

Caught between the sequester and President Obama’s FY2014 budget proposals, USAID faces calls for reform and restructuring.

An amendment to the Marketplace Fairness Act would end the ludicrous loophole that allows the NFL to function as a tax-exempt organization.

In Part II of the Cohen Report’s review of President Obama’s proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget, Rick Cohen examines elements of the budget with specific meaning for nonprofit sector capacity and productivity. Together with Part I here, examine the picture that the budget paints for nonprofits—challenges that go to the fundamental role of nonprofits in society and to the willingness and ability of the federal government to protect and sustain nonprofit capacity. 

While attention is given to the impact of sequestration on furloughed air-traffic controllers, some cuts leave a more visceral wound on the body politic—and specifically the nonprofit sector.

NPQ turns its attention to Uganda, and a charitable donation delivered in a most unorthodox way by a most surprising donor.

The audits ordered by Vladimir Putin’s government of NGOs receiving foreign funds may be intended to change the image of humanitarian groups into sinister “foreign agents." 

Why, exactly, does a multi-million dollar entertainment enterprise need relief from paying municipal taxes?

Few things are more loathed by the public than taxes, and our cultural models encourage us to view government as something to be resisted and our tax system as a faulty or rigged vending machine. So how do we change these entrenched ways of thinking? The FrameWorks Institute has some ideas.

In a stand against homophobic activity elsewhere, Palo Alto Human Relations Commissioner Ezran asks to deny CDBG funds to Catholic Charities.