Daily News Roundup: GuideStar Sued Over ‘Hate Group’ Labels
June 29, 2017 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Christian Nonprofit Sues GuideStar Over “Hate” Tags: Liberty Counsel, one of 46 organizations flagged as “hate groups” in GuideStar profiles, charges that the since-removed labels were slanderous, the Associated Press writes. Liberty Counsel describes itself as a legal-defense group advancing a “Christian and Biblical perspective”; the Southern Poverty Law Center, the source for the GuideStar tags, terms it an “anti-LGBT hate group.” Read views on the “hate group” controversy from GuideStar CEO Jacob Harold and Brigitte Gabriel, head of anti-Sharia law nonprofit ACT for America.
Two States Investigating Trump Lawyer’s Nonprofit: The attorneys general of North Carolina and New York said they are looking into the operations of Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, a charity headed by Jay Sekulow that has paid tens of millions of dollars in compensation and contracts to the lawyer, his family, and businesses they lead, reports The Guardian.
W.K. Kellogg Fund Launches $24 Million Antiracism Effort: A foundation official said grants to organizations in Alaska and 13 U.S. cities, four in Kellogg’s home state of Michigan, will support work with a long-term goal of “squarely attacking racism as a belief system and its consequences in communities,” the Associated Press writes.
IRS Examining Disease Charity’s Ties to Big Drug Firms: The Internal Revenue Service is reviewing the tax-exempt status of the Chronic Disease Fund, a patient-assistance group funded by pharmaceutical companies that investigators say effectively returns its donors’ money as payments for the medications they make, Bloomberg reports, citing federal court records.
Conn. Nonprofits Brace for Impact of Budget Impasse: Hospitals and human-service providers anticipate cuts in state support as the clock ticks down on Connecticut’s fiscal year with no new budget in sight, reports the Hartford Courant. If legislators fail to agree on a fiscal plan by July 1, state spending would come under the control of Gov. Dannel Malloy, who has pledged to maintain essential services.
Charities in Delaware are also facing a budget hit as the state legislature’s Joint Finance Committee approved a spending blueprint that eliminates all grants-in-aid for nonprofits, writes The News Journal of Wilmington. Democratic lawmakers say the cuts are necessary if Republicans don’t allow an income-tax increase.
