October 31, 2010 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Atlanta
The annual Independent Sector meeting here took on a sober tone, as speakers expressed concern that gridlock in Washington is stymieing progress on social issues.
Norman J. Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said the inability of Democrats and Republicans in Congress to agree on a common set of facts was making progress difficult and that expected gains by the Republicans in the November elections would worsen the situation.
“I’ve been in Washington for 41 years, and I’ve never seen it this dysfunctional,” Mr. Ornstein said during the meeting’s opening session. “The next two years are going to be even more nasty and brutish.”
Gara LaMarche, president of Atlantic Philanthropies, said conservatives, including those in the Tea Party, have done a better job of motivating their supporters on issues like lower taxes and smaller government than progressive Democrats have in pushing their agenda.
Mr. LaMarche said that President Obama’s approach to the health-care overhaul was “wonkish” and may not be as successful on other issues, such as immigration and climate change.
“We need a strong moral narrative for the issues that concern us,” Mr. LaMarche said.
A breakout session later in the day looked at where charity leaders should focus their advocacy efforts. Participants split into small groups to discuss topics such as increasing broadband access to needy communities and making sure low-income people aren’t hurt as states begin to enact the new federal health-care law.
Jon Pratt, executive director of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, said charities need to rally behind the Nonprofit Sector and Community Solutions Act in much the same way that they successfully advocated for legislation to expand community service 18 months ago.
The bill, expected to be reintroduced in the new Congress, would create two new bodies to make recommendations about federal policy affecting charities and require federal agencies to step up their collection of data about such organizations. Mr. Pratt said charities would be wise to push for what some are describing as a nonprofit version of the Small Business Administration, which helps for-profit groups.
One of the few heated moments at the Independent Sector meeting came during a session on how tax incentives affect charitable giving.
Rob Reich, an associate professor of political science at Stanford University, kicked off the session on a provocative note by questioning whether tax deductions for giving were even necessary.
Mr. Reich, the author of a paper called “A Failure of Philanthropy: American Charity Shortchanges the Poor, and Public Policy Is Partly to Blame,” noted that people volunteered and gave money to charity long before tax breaks came into being in the 1920s. “It is our current era that is totally anomalous,” he said.
He suggested changing the federal tax code to give a tax credit, rather than a deduction, for charitable gifts so that low-income people receive as much financial incentive for their giving as wealthy people do. He also said the government should provide greater tax incentives for gifts to charities that serve poor people.
“It is fairly easy to imagine policies that would be better than the current blunt policies we have,” Mr. Reich said.
Henry L. Berman, acting chief executive of the Association of Small Foundations, called the government deciding which charities are worthy of deductions “a chilling thought.” He also said it was a bad time for such a debate, with state budgets in turmoil and charities in need of private support.
“The government is sending the wrong message to the American people,” Mr. Berman said.
A member of the audience, Michell Speight, director of programs at the Dyson Foundation, applauded the idea of differentiating among types of charities based on their mission.
“There’s a big difference between a Stanford and a soup kitchen,” she said. “We don’t want to talk about that in this sector, but we have to.”
