For years, political shakedown artists like Jesse Jackson and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) have used demonstrations, boycotts and racial intimidation to dragoon millions of dollars, sub-prime mortgages and other assets from local and state officials, Fortune 500 corporations and federal bureaucrats.
Now an aggressive group of non-profit activists using a somewhat more sophisticated version of the same approach is targeting the billions of private dollars given annually by tax-exempt philanthropic foundations and charities to groups and organizations spanning the spectrum of human need and improvement.
Rather than simply flinging accusations of racism, the group challenges philanthropic leaders to prove they serve the public interest by conforming their grant-making to a new set of ideologically driven criteria allegedly designed to benefit “lower-income communities, communities of color and other marginalized groups, broadly defined.”
And instead of threatening disruptive demonstrations and economically damaging boycotts, they wield something potentially much more lethal – the prospect of Congress forcing them either to accept a costly host of regulations based on the criteria or risk losing their tax exemption, which is to say their very life-blood.
Dress it up as they do in the politically correct language of insuring “diversity” and helping “vulnerable populations,” the inescapable fact is the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) and its allies is making the philanthropic community an offer they think can’t be refused.
The heart of the NCRP criteria are demands that private philanthropies and charities direct at least half of their funding to disadvantaged communities and another quarter to “advocacy, organizing and civic engagement to promote equity, opportunity and justice.”
There are also demands that private philanthropies and charities make their grants for “general operating support” and to fund “multi-year”periods. Finally, the NCRP critieria includes a demand that at least five people representing “a diversity of perspectives” be on governing boards.
To translate, the non-profit activists want access to a huge chunk of money they presently cannot control because it is held by private groups, often family foundations created to serve particular functions and needs like the arts, education and museums.
Those private philanthropies and charities that resist or that fail to measure up to NCRP’s idea of how they should spend their funds can expect the opprobrium of being branded in a hundred different ways, some subtle and some not, as anti-poor, anti-black, anti-immigrant, etc. etc.
To dress up this barely veiled threat in reassuring rhetoric, NCRP dubs its demands as “Criteria for Philanthropy at its Best.” But if NCRP really just wants to help private philanthropies and charities “maximize their contributions to society and make a positive difference in the world today,” why ask Congress to do anything?
It was clear throughout NCRP‘s news conference to unveil the criteria at the National Press Club Tuesday that the real business at hand was to make an offer of “voluntary self-regulation” or else.
The very first speaker, David R. Jones, president and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York, said he and his colleagues “want Congress to look at these criteria and judge whether these organizations are serving the public interest.”
Since a tax-exemption is by definition given to a group judged as serving the public interest, Jones’ invitation for a congressional investigation of groups that don’t meet the NCRP criteria clearly qualifies as a threat.
When asked to clarify what specifically he wanted Congress to do, Jones hemmed and hawed, then claimed “we don’t have an agenda,” but offered “to help Congress draft laws.”
Similarly, when NCRP executive director Aaron Dorfman was asked if the criteria could be used as a framework for new legislation mandating adoption, he quickly replied that “it shouldn’t be.” Which, of course, is another way of saying it could be if somebody chose to do so.
Not coincidentally, Rep. Eavier Becerra, D-CA, to be on hand to thank NCRP and its allies for “giving us in Congress something to work with.” Becerra also made it clear that he views a federal tax exemption as “revenue foregone” by the government and to reiterate that Congress “has an obligation to make sure such tax dollars are well-invested.”
Dorfman said NCRP required 15 months to conduct the background research that went into the criteria. It would have been simpler for all concerned to just say “hand over the money and nobody gets hurt.”
