It is embarrassing for the nonprofit sector to remain silent about the NFL’s sham practice of going through the motions of recruiting and interviewing people of color to be head coaches when it is simply a pretense—compliance with the “Rooney Rule” that requires teams to interview at least one person of color before they can then proceed to hire the white man they intended to hire all along.  This is an issue for nonprofits–because behind the entertainment of the games, the National Football League is a big time, very wealthy, high powered tax exempt organization.

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HUD’s announcement on January 14^th of the second round of Neighborhood Stabilization Program grants (from the stimulus program) for the acquisition and rehabilitation of foreclosed residential properties is strong evidence of the importance of nonprofits in the nation’s economic recovery. In some cases, regional or national nonprofits got large sums for multi-city or multi-state work, sometimes in addition to their local affiliates getting funding through state or city grants: for example, $137.6 million to Habitat for Humanity International for work in five states and $137 million to Chicanos por la Causa for work in eight states. Among the 60 grant recipients are consortia in which nonprofits have significant design and implementation leadership responsibilities in very creative initiatives: (more…)

State budgets were a mess in FY2009, a debacle in FY2010, and look like impending catastrophes in FY2011.  We’ve been visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present this past holiday season with rampaging budget deficits and corresponding cuts in critical social safety net programs and services.  Knocking at the door is the Ghost of Christmas Future with warnings of continuing program rescissions and terminations unless governments and voters, like a dumbfounded Scrooge, come to their senses and radically change their revenue-raising and budget-allocating ways. (more…)

On December 30th, the White House released additional names of its visitors through the end of September.  Some 26,000 visits are in the latest spreadsheets made available to the public.

Here are the problems:  According to the Sunlight Foundation, approximately 100,000 people visit the White House each month.  The numbers don’t match, even if you assume that the White House is deleting some names due to national security or privacy reasons.  (more…)