Each week we bring you a collection of links that highlight political news that impact nonprofits, helpful links for nonprofit professionals, and something positive to end your week.
Helpful Nonprofit Links
- Curious about 2017 Giving Tuesday’s data trends. Steve MacLaughlin shared in HuffPost that giving was up 20% for Blackbaud nonprofits. More encouraging, “The #GivingTuesday data would also suggest that it isn’t an invented occasion that’s dominated solely by the very large nonprofits. Their share of #GivingTuesday revenue continues to shrink and it’s medium-sized and smaller nonprofits raising a greater share each year.”
- Alan Cantor of Philanthropy Daily provides a fascinating article on potential changes to donor-advised funds and how it may affect nonprofit organizations, family foundations, donor-advised fund sponsors, and corporate and individual donors.
- Mary Cahalane of Hands on Fundraising writes about how fundraising is integral to your mission. “Fundraising is not just about money. Fundraising is about building supporters, building community. Fundraising is about making your mission meaningful to more people, so you can do more or better mission.”
- We love a good data dashboard article and Hilda H. Polanco and Sarah Walker from NPQ provide one that was republished this week.
Political News
- Lance Williams from Reveal details why the Trump administration is being sued for reviving a controversial water pipeline project in California’s Mojave Desert. A company, Cadiz Inc., plans to pump billions of gallons of water to Southern California from an aquifer underneath the Mojave Trails National Monument. The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety, two California nonprofits. As Williams shares in the article, “Cadiz is represented by the powerhouse Washington D.C. lobbying firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP, which also owns stock in Cadiz. President Donald Trump appointed former Brownstein lobbyist David Bernhardt to the No. 2 post in the Department of the Interior, which supervises the Bureau of Land Management.”
- Joseph Neff from The Marshall Project writes about a new North Carolina law designed to reduce judges’ ability to waive fines and fees for poor people. What makes the situation more troubling is that “No lawmaker has claimed authorship. No one introduced it as a bill or filed it as an amendment. Tracing sponsorship even stumped the librarians at the North Carolina Legislative Library.”
- Sarah Posner of the Nation provides a deep dive into Alliance Defending Freedom, a 501c3 charity that is at the forefront of the legal fight against the LGBTQ+ community and their rights.
- Thankfully we have National Center for Lesbian Rights Legal Director Shannon Minter and GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project Director Jennifer Levi working to support LGBTQ+ folks. They were on Deray McKesson’s Pod Save the People podcast this week discussing their work on a court case fighting President Trump’s ban on transgender service members.
Sharing Stories
- Katherine Brezler, a second-grade teacher, shared a story on the United Federation of Teachers website entitled, “My students don’t get toilet paper; billionaires get handouts.”
Something Positive
- This week’s share is a personal one. This is my (Justin) first week back after being out of the office for two weeks visiting friends overseas. On the trip, I went to an elephant sanctuary that rescues elephants from logging camps and inhumane shows. The animals were gentle and sweet. It was a great experience and something positive to share!
Blog Post Photo Credit: Photo by Andreas Selter on Unsplash