Is It Wise for Charities to Accept Government Money?

To the Editor:

I read the article “A Welcome Jolt” (February 26) with great interest and, I regret to say, with great alarm. I cannot overstate my concern at the level of funding currently being accepted by nonprofit organizations, both religious and secular, as part of the recent stimulus package passed by our elected representatives in Washington, D.C.

It seems that, as a result of the current economic turmoil, many nonprofits have essentially decided to cast aside any reservations about the well-known problems associated with private organizations accepting large amounts of taxpayer dollars. Surely the nonprofits concerned must know, if only from long experience, that there are always strings attached to government funding.

I do realize that many charities already rely upon government contracts to perform a wide range of charitable services. But in many instances, this extra state funding to make up shortfalls from private donors will lead to a good number of these charities becoming dependent on state and federal government largesse to a degree that makes them virtually an arm of the state.

No doubt, the stimulus funding received by some nonprofits will help them traverse some of their present financial difficulties over the short term. But in the long term, this state funding will surely contribute to large sectors of the nonprofit charitable sector becoming auxiliaries of the government. Perhaps some nonprofits secretly desire this. If so, then they have forgotten what makes them distinct from yet another ineffective government bureaucracy.

The genius of private charity is that it is capable of touching many of the more intangible aspects of genuine human need, which transcend, of course, the material dimensions of human life. Private charity is also far more flexible than most government agencies when it comes to responding to people’s changing needs. Lastly, they are more immune to the temptation to bureaucratization that is perennially associated with both government organizations and those agencies only a few times removed from direct government control.

Public funding changes this dynamic. Perhaps the most significant effect is the manner in which it orients the nonprofit’s attention away from serving those in need and toward doing whatever it takes to gain and retain government funding. In the case of religious nonprofits, it invariably results in such organizations watering down their distinct identity so as to avoid real and imaginary violation of laws concerning the relationship between the church and the state. On occasion, it leads the same organizations to rationalize actions and policies utterly at odds with the moral principles upheld by their church, synagogue, or mosque. Even hiring policies can be affected.

All of these developments assume particularly negative connotation in light of proposals being currently floated in Washington to reduce the incentives for charitable giving by people in particular income brackets.

It is curious to watch nonprofits accepting larger amounts of taxpayer funding while simultaneously protesting against these anti-charitable deduction propositions. Do nonprofits not realize the contradiction?

One of the many things that distinguish America from Europe is the vibrant private philanthropy that exists in the former while being almost nonexistent in the latter. Reducing incentives to give would be a blow to this American tradition. But if nonprofits are serious about the importance of private giving, then they should commit themselves to declining the taxpayer funding that has the effect of compromising the private character of private charities instead of rushing to accept taxpayer dollars.

The Rev. Robert A. Sirico
President
Acton Institute
Grand Rapids, Mich