Despite lip service, rural America is the forgotten landscape of the U.S. political arena and certainly in American philanthropy.  Foundation grantmaking and federal government support to rural communities should be a continuing, serious priority in this nation and within the nonprofit sector.

But unfortunately, for the moment, it appears that rural philanthropic grantmaking is tanking, not just because of the economy, but because of its low ranking in the priority lists of foundation grantmakers and some public decision-makers.  This is contrary to what common sense should tell us:  investing foundation dollars in rural communities is a sensible, constructive part of a philanthropic agenda for social progress, social justice, and economic recovery.

In this brief commentary, we touch on the following issues:

1.  What happened in response to Senator Max Baucus’s challenge to foundations to double foundation grantmaking in 5 years?  What did the foundation sector actually do?

2.  Despite the problematic data on reported foundation grantmaking priorities, what do the trends in domestic U.S. rural development grantmaking look like?

3.  How are rural development organizations experiencing and responding to the continuing diminution of foundation grant support to rural areas?

4.  In what ways does foundation grantmaking relate to federal government policy and budget decisions?

5.  What might be some public policy priorities that rural nonprofits and foundations might think about with clear and specific implications and parallels for the content of foundation grantmaking? Continue reading »

What is happening in Iran right now that Iranian-U.S. nonprofits can signal us to notice, help us understand, and mobilize us into appropriate action?

Take a look at Persepolis, either the graphic book or the movie by Marjane Satrapi, to understand the mix of hope and hopelessness, desire and dismay underlying the protests by so many young people in Tehran against the rigged election that apparently has reinstalled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s troublesome leader.

President Barack Obama has adopted a cautious, pragmatic response to the protests, not giving the mullahs the opportunity to blame the U.S. and its new young president for instigating the protests (so, of course, Ayatollah Khamenei has pinned the responsibility on the Brits led by the hapless, likely outgoing Labor leader, Gordon Brown).

Obama’s cautious response has garnered widespread support except in Congress where make-a-show resolutions have passed both houses demanding the president speak out in favor of the protests and against the Ahmadenijad/Khamenei sham vote count.

Shiites have good reason to be wary of U.S. verbal encouragement.  Remember the predicament of the Shiites in southern Iraq encouraged by President George H.W. Bush to rise up against Saddam Hussein only to be hung out to dry with no support.

Lots of non-Iranian pundits in the U.S. from the left and right are talking about the protests in Iran.  But what are Iranians in the U.S. saying about conditions in their home country?

Continue reading »

It would be well worth the nonprofit sector’s attention and energy to start documenting what 501(c)(3) organizations are doing to generate new jobs as a result of their use of economic stimulus funds.

Because the early indications are that nonprofits are eager to take and spend funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus legislation passed in early 2009), but there’s not a lot that is necessarily reaching nonprofits, or reaching them as fast as it should, and nonprofits aren’t doing much to keep track of their sector accomplishments in the nation’s slow slog out of this recession.

In this post, we take note of what nonprofits are being credited with at this early stage of stimulus implementation. Continue reading »

In January 2008, the Cohen Report wrote about the Pigford litigation that had attempted, with limited effect, to redress the historic discrimination of the U.S. Department of Agriculture toward black farmers.  In “Still Fighting the Last Plantation,” we took note of the principled support of then Illinois Senator Barack Obama and Iowa Republican Charles Grassley calling for an extension of the time period and some flexibility in consideration of the applications of black farmers for Pigford settlement benefits.

We also described some of the nonprofits that were engaged in fighting for black farmers rights, including the National Black Farmers Association, headed by one John Boyd.  The June 21, 2009 Washington Post just did a front-page profile of Boyd, who has not dropped this fight one iota.  Since becoming president, Barack Obama’s first proposed federal budget included $1.25 billion as money to settle the claims of some 70,000 black farmers who contend that they either didn’t know about the original $1 billion settlement in 1999 or had been otherwise unfairly excluded (as a black farmer in Virginia, Boyd himself was among the 16,000 farmers who got something, in his case, $50,000, in the original Pigford settlement).  According to Boyd, the $1.25 billion is $1.25 billion too little.

Continue reading »

Nonprofits across the nation ought to know what legislation is pending in Congress that would change the rules–hopefully for the better–for America’s diverse immigrant population.

The most important legislative initiative related to nonprofits and immigration–other than the elephant in the room, comprehensive immigration reform–is the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, S.729) . Continue reading »

Finding Nonprofits in President Obama’s FY2010 Budget

Welcome to the first NPQ/Cohen Report analysis of the federal budget proposals of President Barack Obama. Here we take a tour of the proposed FY2010 federal budget released to the public on May 7th to mine the meaning for the nonprofit sector. In this one, you’ll discover that the Obama Administration budget contains several programs of crucial importance for nonprofits, but it’s not all peaches and cream.

• Some of the budget lines expressly dedicated to nonprofits are “bubkis,” to use the vernacular. Nonprofits should not get lost fighting over next to nothing while the big dollars slide by nonprofit radar screens.
• Even those items dedicated to the nonprofit sector-for “social innovation” or to replace the Bush-era Compassion Capital Fund-frequently give scant attention to the needs and roles of smaller and medium-sized nonprofits, the organizations that comprise the overwhelming bulk of nonprofits on the front lines of addressing social needs in America’s urban and rural communities.
• And even with the otherwise friendly Obama Administration, nonprofits have to watch out for agency agendas that undo the intent of hard-fought legislative victories and redirect funds away from nonprofits into discretionary agency budgets-with the result that nonprofits might not see much less get the resources they need

Continue reading »

It is hard to fathom the outcry of the nonprofit sector, almost in complete unanimity, against President Obama’s proposal to cap the charitable deduction at the 28 percent tax level for households earning $250,000 or more.  The opposition was and is, to our mind, fueled by an unattractive sectoral insularity, shaped by “sectoral leaders” who, in their successful advocacy against the tax proposal, are transforming the nonprofit sector from a steward of the public interest to just another special interest.  There may be problems with the President’s plan for paying for part of health care reform with a change in the tax deductibility of itemized deductions, but the debate within or by the nonprofit sector has been less than illuminating.

Continue reading »

Is the recession that is currently whacking 501(c)(3) nonprofits hitting tax exempt “associations” such as the Chamber of Commerce? The front page story in the April 11-12, 2009 Wall Street Journal on the impact of the recession in Loganville, Georgia (population 9,500)[i] noted that the number of dues-paying members in the small town’s Chamber of Commerce had dropped from 300 to 180.

Maybe there are some recession-resistant businesses (”social media marketers”,[ii] Dunkin’ Donuts franchises,[iii] and Apple I-PODs[iv], perhaps), but its seems that even reliable nonprofit performers such as chambers of commerce are not among them. Continue reading »

Here’s the worst thing we can do for the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress: Be quiet. No, there’s even something worse: We can transform into an uncritical handmaiden of the handful of insiders who have grabbed the “nonprofit expert” roles in the new administration rather than doing what the nonprofit sector should always do, which is to stand apart, critique, mobilize the communities we represent, and demand social justice. But we nonprofits can be so solipsistic that we miss the bigger picture of the policy challenges facing our nation’s decision-makers. We’ve already seen lots of nonprofits pitching “feed me” agendas at the Obama Administration, but don’t expect to see this column in the stampede of nonprofits’ offering competing, unctuous obsequities. Here’s why: Continue reading »

Readers who are used to the extensive footnotes in Cohen Report postings wondered why the recent posts on the conditions of funders and nonprofits during the current economic downturn (Foundation Grantmaking during Economic Collapse: Pollyanna or Cassandra at the Helm? and Nonprofits Speaking for Themselves: The Impact of the National Economic Tailspin) had lots of citations, but not from the specific grantmaker and nonprofit association reports.  Well, we have the reports containing the core information used in the postings (some RAGs gave us information, but not in report form), of course!  At CR, we love telling stories with numbers.  But the articles were so long without this list of reports, we figured we’d publish the list separately–here. Continue reading »

Have you ever wondered how foundations determine how much they can and should spend in a particular year in grants, loans, and administrative costs? The current economic crisis is a case study on the intersection of endowment management practices, Internal Revenue Service Code requirements, and navigating potential penalties and excise taxes.

When the James Irvine Foundation announced its plan to maintain or increase its grantmaking in 2009, it offered a brief instructional on the practice of “using rolling averages to calculate its annual grantmaking.” Like many other foundations, Irvine “bases its annual giving budget on the average size of its assets over a multiyear period rather than [on] … the size of its asset base at the end of the most recently completed fiscal year.”

Continue reading »

What will happen to foundation grantmaking in 2009 and 2010?  The roots of the story are in the vicissitudes of the stock market, where foundations invest the bulk of their tax exempt assets.

At 1:00 p.m. on February 23, 2009, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell to an 11-year low, to 7,190.72, the lowest since October 28, 1997. By the end of the month, the market closed at 7,062.93. Compare that with the all-time high on October 9, 2007, of 14,164. In less than 18 months, the Dow, the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 indices have lost more than half their value.

While foundation executives and staff have thought carefully about what to do during a recession, their tried-and-true strategies may not hold up during this economic maelstrom, which is different and deeper than any in the past two decades. What should foundations do when their own assets have plummeted so precipitously? How should these institutions respond when the U.S. automotive sector is in danger of bankruptcy, the banking sector is so weak that former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan hints at “temporarily” nationalizing key banks, and hundreds of thousands of nonprofits may simply go out of business?[1]

True, foundation grantmaking constitutes only 12.6 percent of total charitable giving, according to Giving USA 2008,[2] leading some observers to suggest that foundations do not merit the attention they garner. But foundation grants are one of the few sources of discretionary capital that nonprofits might-again, might-be able to use to sustain capacity and subsidize programs to weather financial storms. The role foundations choose to play during these times will speak volumes about their commitment to people in need and to the services and advocacy organizations that serve them.

So how have these important financial institutions responded to the worst recession since the 1930s? How will their strategies for navigating the next months-or years-of national and global economic crises alleviate or exacerbate these turbulent times for America’s nonprofit sector?

Continue reading »

What do we know statistically about the impact of the economy on the nonprofit sector?

With nearly two million registered tax exempt organizations ranging from mammoth universities to tiny neighborhood associations, their diversity makes generalizations nearly impossible.  But there are some clear trends.  Budgets are dipping into the red, reserves are being depleted, reductions in government and foundation funding are taking place, and nonprofit staff are signing up for unemployment benefits.

Continue reading »

Many nonprofits depend on corporate donors for critical philanthropic support.  Can they depend on corporate donors through this economic turmoil?  That is the question we explore here.

There has always been something counterintuitive about corporate philanthropic grantmaking during recessions.  Although one would think that shrinking corporate bottom line would dampen their philanthropic spirits, the data has shown–at least in the past few recessions–that corporations did not deep-six their charitable instincts despite squeezed profit margins, especially compared with the bravado of endowed private foundations.

How will corporate philanthropy actually fare during this recession-closing-in-on-depression?  Despite early indications of confidence, economic realities have begun to temper corporate philanthropic predictions.

Continue reading »

None of us are experts on investments in the stock market, not even the stock market experts.  Every day, foundation endowments, public pension plans, and your 401(k)s sink further toward oblivion.

As a run-of-the-mill investor, what you lose in the markets is your responsibility, the result of your risk-return calculus.  But as a nonprofit manager or foundation director, your responsibility is different.

It’s not your money.  Regardless of whether they’re in overnight sweep accounts or long-term investment funds, the funds you are investing are not yours.  They are the funds meant for public benefit that the American taxpayer has entrusted to you for your stewardship.

Continue reading »