Nonprofit leaders and experts gathered on Capitol Hill today to praise newly unveiled legislation that aims to raise the profile of the charitable world in Washington.
“We have a government that counts iceberg-lettuce heads and can tell us how many iceberg-lettuce heads were put on the ground last year,” Tim Delaney, president of the National Council of Nonprofits, said at a press conference. “Yet it cannot tell us how many heads of individuals were employed by nonprofits. Why are iceberg-lettuce heads more valuable than the people who take care of America’s communities?”
The new bill, the Nonprofit Sector and Community Solutions Act, H.R. 5533, was introduced Tuesday evening by Rep. Betty McCollum, Democrat of Minnesota. It would create two new bodies to make recommendations about federal policy affecting charities and require federal agencies to step up their collection of data about such organizations. (See yesterday’s Chronicle report for more details about the legislation.)
Noting that nonprofit employees make up 10 percent of the American work force, Ms. McCollum complained at the press conference that no Congressional committee or federal agency exists to help nonprofit groups succeed — for example, nothing along the lines of the Small Business Administration, which helps for-profit groups.
She called her bill the “first step toward creating a more effective partnership between the federal government and the nonprofit sector.”
Representing academic researchers, Alan Abramson, a professor of government and politics at George Mason University, said data about the nonprofit world is “woeful” and slow to trickle out. “The sector could fall off the earth and we wouldn’t know about it for two years,” he said.
Other speakers at the press conference included Diana Aviv, president of Independent Sector, the coalition of charities and foundations; Marcia Avner, public policy director at the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits; Ford W. Bell, president of the American Association of Museums; and Shirley Sagawa, a consultant who spoke on behalf of America Forward, a coalition of more than 70 nonprofit groups.
Ms. McCollum’s legislation has been referred to three House committees: oversight and government reform, education and labor, and science technology. She is now working to line up a Republican co-author and Democratic co-sponsors.
Sheila Kumar and Lisa Marrs contributed to this article.
0 Responses to Nonprofit Leaders Praise New Charity Legislation
bflorence - June 16, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Susan & Julie — thought you might be interested in this.
bill__huddleston - June 16, 2010 at 5:45 pm
For this to have any chance of succeeding, it will need both Democratica and Republican co-sponsors. Write your Representatives and Senators and tell them what impact your non-profit has in your community. For the states that don’t have active state association of non-profits, see if your state non-profit registering agency has any information that is publicly available. Regards,Bill HuddlestonFairfax, Virginia
allenj37 - June 16, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Oh, how wonderful!! Another government agency. The Obamites have created more new government agencies during his 18 month tenure than Roosevelt, the former King of Big Government, did during his entire tenure!!
ppcllc - June 16, 2010 at 11:31 pm
No doubt their top priority will be to collect data on diversity and facilitate the redistribution of wealth. Like all other Obama initiatives, just what we need, and, predictably, will siphon more money from hardworking taxpayers into the pockets of parasitic Saul Alinsky disciples.
linda_a - June 20, 2010 at 10:54 pm
I agree that this should probably be left to the private sector (nonprofit affiliation groups) rather than government. However, this shouldn’t be a pro-Obama/anti-Obama conversation. Instead, we should focus on what this can do for the nonprofit sector. If the government is already involved in regulating nonprofits (as we can see by the recent tax legislation), then perhaps they should also be paying more attention and collecting data. This may even change the way that government sees nonprofits, which could affect future bills as well as grants – per the linked article, it would help by “improving the procedures for awarding grants and contracts and helping groups expand that have effectively tackled social problems.” Politics can blind us from seeing things for what they really are. Therefore, we should probably stick to the topic at hand :-)