Washington Nonprofit Insight • By Rick Cohen • February 17, 2010 • Email Print

This year, the fight for our communities means fighting to get them counted in the high-stakes battleground of the Census. Rick Cohen's timely analysis shows us why the 2010 Census is so important and what nonprofits can do now to make sure everyone is counted.

Suppose the U.S. Census had forgotten to include Chicago? In 2000, the U.S. Census missed three million people, the approximate population of Chicago. If we had missed three million people at random, maybe it wouldn't have made a big difference. But most of those we missed are poor people, people of color and children. In other words: the Census missed much of the nonprofit sector's communities.

The importance of the Census (conducted every ten years) cannot be understated, especially to nonprofits on the front lines of serving communities. And it's not just the numbers: it's getting race properly identified.

In addition to your organization's . . .

Washington Nonprofit Insight • By Rick Cohen • November 30, 2009 • Email Print

Unexpectedly, there are three large and distinct ways that the nonprofit sector is involved with the health care reform debates. First, nonprofits are employers, and, like all employers, have a stake in employer incentives for providing health insurance for their employees. Second, the role of nonprofit hospitals is being questioned in the debate, with some asking: "If nearly everyone will be insured, will hospitals need to provide charity care, and if not, why would they be nonprofit?" And third, what in the world is meant by the much-mentioned" nonprofit cooperatives as alternatives to the public option"?

Rick Cohen explores and answers these compelling questions, noting that according to the old saying, "One sneeze a wish, two sneezes a kiss, three sneezes a disappointment."

The next time you see people lined up at a free clinic, ask yourself: how many of them tried and failed to get "charity care" at a nonprofit hospital? How many of them are nonprofit employees? How many of them can't . . .

Washington Nonprofit Insight • By Rick Cohen • September 30, 2009 • Email Print

For-profit companies continue to seek ways to obtain two benefits that are usually reserved for nonprofits: foundation grants and government tax exemptions. These efforts are led by both well-meaning individuals as well as those that simply want funding without community accountability. Regardless, they offer risks and challenges to the nonprofit sector as we know and celebrate it. Rick Cohen tells us of one such effort that appears -- in the absence of opposition -- to be headed for adoption.

The hot topic in foundation circles is the L3C: the low profit limited liability corporation, the latest development in social enterprise. Several states are legalizing L3Cs and accompanying tax and philanthropic benefits, and its backers are pitching them for federal approval.

L3Cs are profit-making corporations, but their owners don't identify profit as their primary purpose. The mission of an L3C is a social benefit, doing socially productive and useful things, and only then earning a profit.

At the national level, the Council on Foundations has been actively promoting L3Cs, on Capitol Hill for the past two years.  Already in four states and two tribes, individuals can form L3Cs and attract various types of investors, and, because of their charitable missions, tap into foundation loans and . . .

Washington Nonprofit Insight • By Rick Cohen • July 19, 2009 • Email Print

With this issue, we inaugurate a new column from Washington's pithiest, most independent critic: Rick Cohen. Although many of us aren't deeply involved with policy matters, all of us do want to have a general view of what's going on. In future every-other-issue columns Rick will report on the role of foundations in tax cuts, how the Obama administration sees the nonprofit sector, and the apparent disappearance of faith-based funds. His first column takes on the much-publicized, little-analyzed new federal Social Innovation Fund:

Despite the fact that President Obama's staff is still trying to figure out what social innovation really means, we've got a pretty good idea on what will be in the $50 million Social Innovation Fund -- and what won't be. For starters, it's now the $35 million Social Innovation Fund (more on this below).

First, grants to regrantors

Because the program needs non-governmental grantmakers that can provide matching funds, the Fund is largely structured to pass money to and through established grantmakers, particularly community and private foundations.

Of the total amount, 5% comes off the top for evaluation and R&D, and only 10% will go as grants awarded directly to "community organizations." The remaining 85% will go in grants sized between . . .