October 30, 2008 | Read Time: 6 minutes
As charities grapple with the economic crisis, their executives would like to see the next president take steps to promote giving and strengthen the nonprofit work force, according to a study released last week.
The survey asked charity executives what a new presidential administration could do to help nonprofit groups and their clients handle the economic crisis.
Roughly 80 percent of respondents said “reinstatement and expansion of tax incentives for individual charitable giving” would be “very helpful,” according to a report on the survey.
Executives of nonprofit groups also strongly supported extending the life of the estate tax, now due to expire in 2010 — because they believe that would stimulate more charitable giving — and restoring or increasing funds in the federal budget for services that charities provide. Leaders of orchestras, theaters, and museums were the biggest fans of changes that would stimulate charitable giving.
Close to half of the respondents said it would be extremely usefuly to reform reimbursements under federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid so that they cover providers’ costs, and to establish “broad-based tax credit” for investments that charities make in equipment, plants, and strategic planning.
The survey was conducted in September by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies, in Baltimore, as part of the Nonprofit Listening Post Project, a research effort that conducts regular surveys on issues facing nonprofit groups.
It was based on responses from executives at more than 1,000 nonprofit organizations that focus on four causes: children and family services, housing and services for older people, neighborhood and economic development, and the arts.
The charity leaders also said they would like to see changes that would help them recruit and retain workers.
At least 84 percent of executives said it would be somewhat or extremely useful for the government to provide funds for training charity employees to help improve effectiveness of their organizations; forgive student loans for people who choose to work at nonprofit organizations; and provide special health-insurance tax credits for nonprofit workers.
The survey was conducted before Congress’s approval of a $700-billion rescue plan for banks and the ensuing sharp drop in the stock market.
Lester M. Salamon, director of the Center for Civil Society Studies and one of the report’s authors, says nonprofit executives would probably have expressed even greater urgency in seeking changes in government policy if the survey had been conducted in the past two weeks.
“We’re bailing out the banks, but we are not taking steps to improve the nonprofit infrastructure that helps people when they encounter economic distress,” Mr. Salamon says. “Nonprofits are going to be called upon to absorb enormous demands and they’re going to need help to do that. We need policies that recognize the role that they are going to play in the recovery.”
The nonprofit executives had less enthusiasm for certain regulatory actions that the next administration could take.
Only 36 percent of the executives strongly favored creating a federal agency to represent and promote nonprofit interests, and only 22 percent said it would be extremely useful to have “community benefit standards” to determine which organizations could be eligible for tax exemptions.
Seeking Federal Aid
The leaders had differing opinions about what was their No. 1 priority for a new administration.
More than 19 percent said restoration or growth of federal funds for their cause was their top priority.
Nearly 17 percent wanted to see improvements in federal voucher programs that would insure that reimbursements cover the costs incurred by the provider.
More than 11 percent said their top desire was reinstatement and expansion of tax incentives for individual charitable giving.
The survey found that the nonprofit executives were generally disappointed with recent government actions affecting tax-exempt groups.
Only 12 percent said they thought that government policies affecting nonprofit organizations had improved over the past two years.
Peter B. Goldberg, chief executive of the Alliance for Children and Families, in Milwaukee, says he fears that Congress might make changes in response to the financial crisis that would make things even worse for the nonprofit world. For example, some conservative commentators have suggested that the Community Reinvestment Act, which encourage financial institutions to make loans in neighborhoods with a lot of poor people, contributed to the current economic crisis.
“I hope we don’t take it all for granted — that whatever changes are made, the nonprofit sector will just keep rolling merrily along,” says Mr. Goldberg, who is chairman of the steering committee for the Listening Post project. “It’s not rolling merrily along now and it’s not going to get any better.”
Leaders of different types of organzations had opposing reactions to certain policy questions. A majority of the leaders of charities that provide housing and services to older people said that the next administration should expand support for religious organizations, while just 7 to 15 percent of arts organizations backed that idea.
Health Insurance
The largest nonprofit organizations in the survey — those with revenue of $3-million or more — were most concerned about finances, such as overhauling policies for reimbursements under the large federal programs.
The smallest organizations — those with revenue of $500,000 or less — were more concerned about federal support for nonprofit training and health-insurance tax credits for nonprofit workers.
The leaders also said their organizations were hurting due to the high price of oil.
Nearly 79 percent of respondents said high energy prices were causing problems for their organizations.
The report, “Nonprofit Policy Priorities for the New Administration,” by Mr. Salamon and Stephanie Lessans Geller, with assistance from Kasey L. Spence, is available on the Johns Hopkins Web site.
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WHAT NONPROFIT LEADERS WANT FROM THE NEW PRESIDENT
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