May 4, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Grant makers need to emulate the civil-rights movement and challenge Washington and the country to fix national problems, said Rep. John Lewis, Democrat from Georgia, during the Council on Foundation’s annual meeting.
As the head of the Ways and Means Committee’s panel on oversight, which oversees tax-exempt organizations, he is looking for foundations “to be creative, to be daring.”
Mr. Lewis, a former civil-rights leader himself who helped organize sit-ins in the 1960s, said his parents discouraged him from pushing for social change. “They said, ‘Don’t get in the way, don’t get in trouble,’” he said. “I got in trouble, I got in the way.”
He said nonprofit groups should do the same and push members of Congress to change public policies to help the poor and other issues.
“Don’t be afraid of us,” he said. “We need to hear what you’re doing to help the common good and make this a more perfect union.”
