Florida’s governor signed legislation last week aimed at curtailing how much state and local governments can do to regulate foundations and their diversity practices.
Drafted with help from the Alliance for Charitable Reform, the law prohibits Florida government officials from requiring that foundations disclose the race, religion, gender, income level, sexual orientation, or certain other characteristics of their employees and board members, as well as those of their grant recipients.
The new law also bars state and local government officials from requiring that private foundations appoint board members based on such characteristics and preventing them from selecting trustees who are family members.
In addition to introducing restrictions on how government officials might regulate foundation governance, the law prohibits governments from forcing foundations to give money to groups and people based on their racial makeup and other characteristics.
The legislation was prompted by concern about the efforts of the Florida Minority Community Reinvestment Coalition and other groups to compel grant makers to disclose information on how diverse their staff and board members are and how much of their money benefits minority and low-income populations.
The Alliance for Charitable Reform is a project of the Philanthropy Roundtable, a Washington group that represents donors.
While the law’s backers say it will preserve foundations’ independence and help attract more foundations to Florida, opponents likened it to discrimination.
“They must be really ashamed of their diversity practices if they have gone a step forward in creating regulation that basically gives them the right to discriminate,” said Orson Aguilar, executive director of the Greenlining Institute, a California group that has backed legislation in the state to compel foundations to disclose information about their diversity practices.
Mr. Aguilar challenged the legislation’s legality and said it would help his group’s advocacy efforts by raising the issue’s profile.
“They’ve given us a big gift,” he said.
The bill’s backers, meanwhile, stressed its importance in spurring charitable giving and protecting foundations from undue outside influence.
“In these troubling economic times, we need to encourage more giving to these charitable organizations that are helping our most vulnerable, and governments should do nothing to get in the way of the good work they do,” said Mike Fasano, a state senator, in a press statement released by the Philanthropy Roundtable.
The Florida law follows a resolution passed in February in Virginia, which was also backed by the Alliance for Charitable Reform, that praised the work of foundations and encouraged grant makers to locate in the state.
0 Responses to Fla. Adopts Legislation to Protect Foundations’ Autonomy
ppcllc - June 1, 2010 at 8:56 pm
If it was up to parasitic, racism pimps who have honed intimidation to a fine art, society would never acheive color-blindness.
fmcrctampa - June 10, 2010 at 2:16 pm
So “PPCLLC” tell me how long have you been an idiot? I have served my country in the military and continue to serve my country by fighting poverty in these mostly minority communities that makes our country stronger. My name is Al Pina and Chair of the Florida Minority Community Reinvestment Coalition and one of the so called parasites you refer to…you either did not get enough attention from your mommy or daddy or you are blaming everyone else but yourself for your life. But either way, you are a very angry person. But try using some intelligence.May help
ppcllc - June 18, 2010 at 12:31 am
Mr. Pina,Thank you for your service. I, too, have served my country as an Infantry officer, as if our military service has anything to do with the issue at hand. Nor do I think your juvenile pseudo-Freudian analysis was relevant, or clever, for that matter.I’m not acquainted with your organization (though it was government-forced “community reinvestment” and the attendant corruption that was largely responsible for the mortgage crisis that has crippled our economy), but we’ve had decades of wrongheaded, grossly counterproductive, so-called antipoverty efforts that have led to nothing but monumental debt, a cycle of dependence, the breakdown of nuclear families, and an automatic suspiscion that any minority individual who acheives success does so only due to some type of affirmative action.Under such circumstances, the attainment of self-esteem is very nearly impossible. The actual leaders of these community organizing entities don’t really have minority individuals’ welfare at heart, and are cynically using the groups to advance their own agendas, using the tactics taught by Saul Alinsky, to undermine the capitalist society they despise.Rather than preach to me about using some intelligence, perhaps you should examine whether you yourself have used even a modicum of critical thinking in examining the direction of your own professional life.There are plenty of examples of minority groups who have come to this country with no money, unable to speak the language, no outside help, no special concessions from government, and, on their own, assimilated into American society and acheived material and academic success in very short order. That should indicate whether or not you’re on the right track.Am I angry? You bet your ass. But anger and intelligence are not mutually exclusive.Jeff Steele