June 2, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Expect to see an increased push for a Small Business Administration-style government agency to help nonprofit groups improve their capacity.
About 130 participants at the Nonprofit Congress annual meeting in Washington are expected to meet with a similar-sized group of lawmakers on Wednesday to advocate for passage of the Nonprofit Capacity Building Initiative.
The agency created under the proposal would provide at least $25-million annually for three years to help nonprofit groups with budgets of less than $5-million annually to get training on how to improve their management, planning, and organizational structures.
Ann Beltran, a policy analyst at the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, said aides to Sen. Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and Sen. Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, are behind the concept. Those lawmakers are the senior members of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees nonprofit groups.
The next step is getting a larger group of lawmakers to support possible legislation.
“For all of the money the government takes from business, it gives something back through the Small Business Administration,” Ms. Beltran said in a session here Monday. “There is nothing similar for the nonprofit sector.”
