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Nonprofits

How To Build A Culture Of Organizing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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’

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.

New Report: Gilded Giving 2022

We estimate in Gilded Giving 2022 that if foundations had a 10 percent minimum payout and DAFs had a three-year mandated payout between 2018 and 2020, at least $193 billion in additional donations would have flowed to charities. “As wealth concentrates in fewer hands, it causes troubling distortions in the charity sector,” noted Chuck Collins, director of the Charity Reform Initiative at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-author of the report. “When wealthy donors can claim big tax deductions for charitable giving to private foundations that they control in perpetuity, it allows them to opt out of paying their fair share in taxes to support the systems on which we all depend. This effectively enables already powerful multi-millionaires and billionaires to maintain a taxpayer-subsidized form of private power and influence.”

US Charitable Donations Are Funding Displacement Of Palestinians

Several gunshot bangs pierced the sky. Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian protester with live ammunition. Chants and cheers from Israeli settlers from Modi’in Illit rang out through the air as they stood upon a mound of dirt overlooking the Israeli apartheid wall. Israeli soldiers fired multiple rounds of tear gas into the crowds. As protesters scattered to evade the gas and live fire, young volunteer Palestinian paramedics darted through the tear gas to quickly grab and attend to the injured. That five minutes of Palestinian nonviolent resistance on April 1, 2022, captured the essence of Land Day: Despite facing the heavy hand of the Israeli military, Palestinian protesters and international solidarity activists refused to leave their land.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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