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Nonprofits

What The World Can Learn From Radical Queer Aid Collectives

March 25, 2025 Soita Khatondi Wepukhulu, Grassroots Economic Organizing. , , , , ,
One of the 26 executive orders Donald Trump signed on the first day of his presidency was a 90-day pause on foreign aid, which he said is often “not aligned with American interests”. The subsequent suspension of overseas aid programmes has hit vulnerable communities around the world, with LGBTIQ+ organisations in the Global South among the worst affected. But three East African queer mutual aid groups were well-prepared for this scenario, and have a model that could help organisations reeling from Trump’s actions. Since their inception, The Trans and Queer Fund and UmaUma Buy Nothing group, both based in Kenya, and an untitled queer collective in Uganda have organised themselves to be independent from foreign donors, which they say do not understand the realities of the communities they serve.

Inside The Rise And Fall Of Hester Street

January 18, 2025 Oscar Perry Abello, Next City. , , ,
Right where Manhattan’s Chinatown and Lower East Side start fading into each other, the below-grade garden-style storefront that Hester Street Collaborative called home for most of its existence was constantly awash in color. Post-its everywhere. Whiteboards, easel pad paper stuck up on walls, covered in handwritten notes. Giant print-outs summarizing community input for building redesigns or neighborhood rezonings. Artwork made onsite by students from the middle school across the street, who came for workshops or just to hang out.

How To Build A Culture Of Organizing

December 1, 2024 Steve Dubb and Marshall Ganz, Non Profit News. , , ,
Democracy is not something you have; it is something you do. If you’re not doing it, it’s not real. Sadly, in our country, there is less and less of it being done. Take the replacement of self-governing organizations with nonprofits or NGOs: there is nothing democratic there. It is almost like unions are one of the few remaining forces where people are actually practicing self-government. It is kind of hard to have any real understanding of what democracy means in terms of how we interact with each other and how we govern ourselves when it is not part of your daily experience. It hollows out any real understanding of democracy.

The Zionist Effort To Defund Climate And Environmental Justice

November 28, 2024 Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, Black Agenda Report. , , , , ,
While the emissions reduction efficacy of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is still in question, it’s less debatable that the “historic climate law” has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, to certain climate and environmental justice organizations (CEJ). Many in the U.S. climate community herald this development as CEJ groups have been historically underfunded and markedly less resourced than historically white-led environmental organizations, commonly referred to as “Big Green.” According to a 2020 report by researcher Michael Thomas, environmental justice organizations received between $25 and $50 million.

Pro-Palestinian Non-Profit Killer Bill Up For Another Vote This Week

November 16, 2024 Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. , , ,
While the first version of H. R. 9495 targeting pro-Palestinian nonprofits was defeated in the US House of Representatives on November 12 with 256 voting in favor the bill and 145 opposed, this week the bill will be brought back under a procedural ploy in which only a simple majority is needed to pass the bill instead of the 2/3rds majority needed last week. The following members of the House of Representatives voted for the resolution and should be contacted by their constituents. The legislation would take away the tax exempt status from nonprofit organizations by designating them as “terrorist supporting organizations“.

US House Defeats Bill Targeting Pro-Palestine Non-Profits

November 15, 2024 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , ,
On November 12, a bill that could have given the US government, in particular the presidency, sweeping powers to target pro-Palestine organizations failed to pass the US House of Representatives. Although 256 representatives voted in favor of the bill, and 145 opposed, H.R. 9495, titled the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act” required two thirds of the House to pass, which it did not receive. The bill, which would have stripped the tax-exempt status from nonprofit organizations designated as “terrorist supporting organizations” and raised significant alarm within the Palestine solidarity movement, has been defeated for now.

US House Urged To Stop Bill Enabling Trump To Attack Nonprofits

November 13, 2024 Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams. , , ,
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote soon on legislation that would further empower President-elect Donald Trump, who won a new term last week after fear-mongering about the so-called "enemy from within" and vowing to "root out" people he described as "radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country." Nonprofits and rights advocates are sounding the alarm about H.R. 9495, or the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act. The bill would provide tax relief for U.S. nationals and their spouses who are unlawfully or wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad but also includes legislation to terminate the tax-exempt status of "terrorist-supporting" groups.

Imperialist Feminism: Canada Funds Haitian Human Rights Groups

October 2, 2024 Travis Ross, Black Agenda Report. , , , ,
The Canadian government funds several non-governmental organizations (NGO) in Haiti under the banner of promoting human rights. A significant portion of this funding is devoted to feminist and women’s advocacy groups in Haiti. Often in coordination with the United-Nations and private foundations, the Canadian government directly implicates itself in the governance of these NGOs. Other Canadian-funded programs in Haiti include leadership programs that provide training to individuals to participate in developing reforms related to governance. Key leaders in Haiti’s feminist movement are also long-time recipients of Canadian government funding.

Conservative US lawmakers Hound Pro-Palestine Organizations

September 29, 2024 People's Dispatch. , , , ,
On September 25, Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson took to social media to attack several pro-Palestine organizations, which have been leading in the solidarity movement across the United States. Johnson referenced the action taken by the United States House Committee on Ways and Means, led by conservative Representative Jason Smith, which has called on the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt status of eight organizations. According to Smith, these organizations have “organized and subsidized illegal activity on college campuses and beyond and have potentially provided support to terrorist organizations overseas.”

Canada Set To Revoke Jewish National Fund’s Charitable Status

July 26, 2024 Yves Engler, Mondoweiss. , , ,
Score a significant victory against apartheid, genocide and Canada’s most significant contribution to Palestinian dispossession. The powerful Jewish National Fund of Canada has reportedly had its charitable status revoked. Under pressure from Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) and others the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) instigated an audit of the JNF in 2018. JNF Canada was eventually forced to differentiate itself from its parent organization in Israel and to stop “co-mingling” its funds with that organization. JNF Canada was also instructed to stop assisting projects in the illegally occupied West Bank and initiatives supporting the Israeli military.

Congress Is Leaving Nonprofit Workers Out Of Retirement Benefits

July 9, 2024 Chitra Ayar, In These Times. , , ,
This year, believe it or not, many U.S. workers got some good news about their future. Key provisions of Congress’ federal legislation, SECURE 2.0 (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement) went into effect, providing important safeguards to protect the retirement savings of workers in the United States. These include mandated automatic enrollment in retirement plans, relaxed eligibility requirements for part-time workers, and matching employer contributions to employee student loan payments — targeted measures that particularly benefit people historically at the losing end of the retirement wealth gap: women, people of color and low-income earners.

How A Network Of Nonprofits Enriches Fundraisers

June 18, 2024 Ellis Simani, ProPublica. , , ,
In September 2020, the Federal Trade Commission joined regulators in four states to sue four men behind a notorious telemarketing company called Outreach Calling. The FTC alleged that the company, which it described as a “sprawling fundraising operation,” had raised millions on the promise of helping the needy — cancer patients, veterans, firefighters — but instead used the money to line its pockets. The case was meant to put fundraisers on notice. The FTC would not only go after charities that improperly spent donor dollars, but it would “aggressively pursue their fundraisers who participate in the deception,” a news release said.

Will The Revolution Be Funded?

June 15, 2024 Zac Chapman and Nairuti Shastry, Portside. , , ,
In April 2022, grassroots organization Mijente unveiled a political framework in which it advocated for a threefold strategy of working within, without, and against the state to achieve its political goals. This framing was inspired by a movement group in Chile, the Movimiento de Pobladores en Lucha. We propose a similar path: building strategic alignment across groups working within, without, and against philanthropy. We aim to share the historical and present-day value of diverse approaches to fundraising that include but are in no way limited to philanthropic investment. Moreover, we seek to show how aligning work within, without, and against philanthropy can catalyze power building on the Left.

Tell Senate To Reject Bill Endangering Pro-Palestinian Nonprofits

May 7, 2024 Ismail Allison, CAIR. , , , ,
Take urgent action NOW. Tell your U.S. senator to oppose H.R.6408 and S.4136, Orwellian bills that would authorize a single official in the Treasury Department to strip any nonprofit organizations of their tax-exempt status without any accountability, justification, or due process. This bill was meant to target pro-Palestinian charities and nonprofit organizations and could be easily weaponized to target any nonprofit organization the President finds objectionable. No American organization should be stripped of its legal status because of politics or anti-Palestinian bigotry masked as national security.

Why People Say There’s A ‘Nonprofit Industrial Complex’

August 26, 2022 In These Times. , ,
Lots of nonprofits do important work — like, say, In These Times, which is a reader-supported 501(c)(3). But the “nonprofit-industrial complex” refers to the larger ecosystem of elite foundations and corporate influence-peddling. Incite, a network of radical anti-state violence activists, convened a conference to detail this relationship in 2004, titled, “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.” Incite had been grant-funded by the Ford Foundation— funding Incite lost because of its support for Palestine. As outlined at the conference, nonprofits that depend on corporate and foundation funding do so often to the detriment of their missions. Time and energy is spent laundering the reputation of corporate funders, for example, rather than on their stated purpose.
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