Nonprofit Groups Propose Agenda for the Next President

Nonprofit leaders who participated in a recent online survey were given a list of

35 recommendations for the next president of the United States and asked to rank them in order of priority. The topics included new tax incentives and other proposals that could help improve the work that nonprofit groups do.

But nearly 200 of the 1,000 people who filled out the survey contributed ideas of their own to the proposals.

Among the comments:

• The next president should order a nonprofit census. Who’s out there, doing what, for whom? Once completed, it would show just how integral and essential the nonprofit sector is. It would also be fodder for demonstrating how much the nonprofit sector saves government and taxpayers and, thereby, change the thinking from “being on the dole” to making an incredibly high-yield, high-return investment.

• Individuals that take out government-subsidized loans for their education and choose to work for nonprofit organizations should receive at least forgiveness on the interest on their loans, but even more, a 50-percent reduction in the loan amount if they earned at least a 3.25 upon graduation.

• How about creating a national nonprofit watchdog, modeled on the highly successful consumer utility boards, which would be created by a voluntary checkoff on your taxes and would be democratically controlled and would dog the government on nonprofit issues?

• Grandstanding “White House Conferences” and bureaucratic mazes ostensibly aimed at strengthening philanthropy should be replaced by government doing what it does best — get out of the way of what individual and collaborative volunteer and philanthropic initiatives do far better with minimal government incursions.

• The financial base for the sector is eroding through government laws that restrict tax-deductible contributions and changes in the corporate-sector patterns of traditional support. For any new administration, the protection and strengthening of the nonprofit sector should be one of the primary focuses.

• Increase [National Endowment for the Arts/National Endowment for the Humanities] funding to at least 5 percent of the defense budget! How can we as a nation spend more than 20 times as much on violence as we do on feeding our souls?

• Pay specific attention to the role of nonprofits in rural areas. In many ways, these are the only institutional infrastructure available to rural residents.

• We should gradually eliminate nonprofit organizations. I can’t believe people actually want to increase the size of the nonprofit sector. Taking money from families to give to nonprofit groups is outrageous! Every dollar taken from a family is $1 they don’t have to provide food and shelter for their children.

• Pay reasonable fees on government contracts. Nonprofits should not be expected to provide services for below-standard rates. Funding for new or pilot programs should be for multiple years (five) to provide time to evaluate and demonstrate success while obtaining funds for sustainability.

• Encourage businesses to allow parents and other workers to engage in volunteer activities at schools and other nonprofits.

• Gradually move away from income and employment taxes to resource-use and waste taxes. Target revenues from such taxes directly to nonprofits, such as tobacco-tax revenues to health organizations, pollution taxes to environmental groups, gas taxes to alternative-energy groups, and so on.

• If the president has a weekly address to the nation, he (someday, she) should feature a nonprofit each week that is working in the area he discussed. Many nonprofits have developed extremely innovative approaches to the thorny problems of society, and sharing those ideas could create a broad ripple effect that could benefit many Americans.

• It is shameless the way employees of most nonprofits are struggling themselves. Most don’t have health insurance, life insurance, investment opportunities, or their own decent affordable housing, and many find themselves at or very close to the poverty level. Many put back their own resources into the organizations to help others. Food pantries in our area are finding people coming in now who have incomes in the $30,000 range, whereas many of the case managers are at a lower pay scale than the persons we serve.

• Identify in more specific ways which organizations should and should not be considered nonprofit.

• Establish meaningful health-care reform so that vulnerable people could receive quality care and charities could afford to offer quality benefits to employees and their families. Require that government contracts provide enough money for nonprofits to pay employees a livable wage, and provide for guaranteed in those contracts. Establish prompt payment requirements that would penalize government agencies and/or make interest-free bridge loans available in the event of payment delays. Prevent the erosion of the tax base and the essential programs/services it funds. Target tax relief at populations where it is needed, and preserve progressive tax structures.

• The president should set an example by donating to charity and should encourage young people to donate. With the upcoming transfer of wealth, and the recent Internet millionaires, many young people have so much money and they do not know what to do with it. The future president should speak to this issue and encourage people to donate money and set up foundations to help ensure their legacy.