How This Country Continues to Miss the Point about Immigration

August 27, 2009

How can this nation continue to be so mystifyingly confused, contradictory, and sometimes downright incoherent about immigrants and immigration?   The Summer 2009 issue of Nonprofit Quarterly is devoted to the challenges faced by nonprofits in serving, representing, and advocating for immigrant populations in the midst of a confusing public discourse.  The authors in the [...]

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Senate and House Divergence in FY2010 Appropriations for Nonprofits

August 12, 2009

Appropriations start in the House of Representatives, but require action from the Senate as well in order to pass a budget.  The Senate’s Committee on Appropriations started to make some budget headway just this past week, passing a number of bills that will require negotiations and blending with their House Appropriations counterparts in conference committee.
Where [...]

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House Appropriations for the “Other” Programs in the FY2010 Budget

July 30, 2009

A number of programs of importance to nonprofits are lodged in agencies other than HUD, Education, Labor, HHS, and Agriculture.  We note a couple of them in terms of how they fared with the House Appropriations Committee here:

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Smoke, Mirrors, and Earmarks in the FY2010 Budget

July 30, 2009

It should come as no surprise to savvy nonprofit budget hawks that some of the appropriations for programs that would normally be distributed through competitive or formula processes have already been allocated through other means–as earmarks.  In the House Appropriations Committee budget recommendations, there are significant slices of program lines that have already been awarded [...]

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House Appropriations for Nonprofits in President Obama’s FY2010 Budget

July 28, 2009

In establishing the national budget, the Executive proposes, and Congress–beginning with the House of Representatives–appropriates the moneys.
President Barack Obama’s proposed Fiscal Year 2010 budget just received the House Appropriations Committee treatment—with nonprofit interests among the winners and losers in the final tally.  The dynamic of note to the nonprofit sector revolves around 5 key factors [...]

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No Time for Corruption–Legal or Illegal

July 27, 2009

Today’s (July 23rd) reports of widespread corruption arrests in Hoboken, Jersey City, and other Hudson County, New Jersey communities (and some outside of Hudson County as well), netting three mayors, state legislators, city council members, and others, have special resonance for me.  I was an appointed city official for four years in Jersey City, and [...]

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Action Venues for Immigration Rights and Reform Advocacy

July 27, 2009

Notwithstanding the White House meeting on immigration reform and commitments by the likes of Senators Reid (D-NV) and Schumer (D-NY) to get something done in Congress this year, the momentum for immigration reform action does not feel much like a juggernaut.  In the Washington Post, Tamar Jacoby of ImmigrationWorks (an employers group advocating immigration reform) [...]

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An Immigration Agenda for ‘Regular Jane and Joe’ Nonprofits

July 21, 2009

Some people might think that a concern about documented and undocumented immigrants is sort of outside the ken of most “regular Jane and Joe” nonprofits, the groups that aren’t immigrant-founded or -run, the groups whose agendas ostensibly have little to do or nothing to do directly with immigration reform.
That’s not true. All nonprofits [...]

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Rural Development Grantmaking–Problems and Prospects

June 25, 2009

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 [...]

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Watching the Iranian Protests through U.S.-Iranian Nonprofit Lenses

June 25, 2009

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 [...]

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Nonprofits Carrying out the Stimulus–or Trying to

June 24, 2009

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 [...]

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Update on Black Farmers: Dogged Advocacy Needed, Regardless of Who’s President

June 22, 2009

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 [...]

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Why Nonprofits Should Care about the DREAM Act

June 9, 2009

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) [...]

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Finding Nonprofits in President Obama’s FY2010 Budget

May 15, 2009

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 [...]

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Charities in the Calculus for Paying for Health Care Reform

May 4, 2009

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, [...]

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