Bitten hand stops feeding
Here's a howler on OPB today: The Portland nonprofit industrial complex, which has feasted on the local taxpayers for decades, is now whining that it's out of money.
Nonprofit organizations across Portland are facing serious financial and staffing challenges that imperil groups working in everything from social services to public transportation to biking. Some are on the brink of shutting down entirely.
They say that like it's a bad thing.
The nonprofit types, egged on by people like "a professor of nonprofit management and governance at the University of Oregon School of Planning, Public Policy and Management," say they can't get and keep workers. And they're complaining that donations are down, partly due to the mean old Trump-McConnell tax code.
White, the director of the nonprofit association, says that part of the problem for nonprofits also stems from a 2017 change in tax law. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered income tax rates, increased the standard deduction and got rid of itemized deductions, “provisions that significantly reduced the number of itemizers and hence the number of taxpayers taking a deduction for charitable contributions,” according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington D.C.
“A group of people who may have been itemizing before and would count a charitable deduction in their itemization no longer needed to do that,” said White. “So it swept a whole bunch of people out of needing to do that itemization, which then no longer incentivized them because they wouldn’t get any kind of support through their tax deduction.”
Not mentioned in the story on OPB (itself a hungry nonprofit) is the fact that organizations like the Oregon Food Bank and Sisters of the Road have recently taken a hard left turn, spouting strident rhetoric at every turn and looking more like political organizations. This turns off normal people with real lives and money to give away.
I'm sure these groups will be drying their tears and seeking ever more government handouts. And the bobbleheads that get elected to local government in Portlandia these days will no doubt do their best to bail them out. But if a few of the more preposterous nonprofits went under, to me it wouldn't be the end of the world.
The hard left turn isn’t new to these guys. The rest of us are just now noticing it.
ReplyDeleteActually, both the Food Bank and Sisters have new executive directors these days. Maybe money talked.
DeleteThe ship may have a new captain. But, it hasn’t changed direction.
DeleteYeah, check out her profile on the OFB website. Hard pass.
DeleteYep. They're still at it. Too bad. https://www.oregonfoodbank.org/posts/part-one-what-is-colonization-decolonization-and-how-do-they-relate-to-food-justice
DeleteSusannah Morgan has been at OFB for about 15 years. She has committed many missteps during her time as ED.
DeleteIs not nonprofitism the back door to socialism and sure to fail as there is no reward for those who succeed?
ReplyDeleteYes. Former consultant ('85-89) National Legal Services Corporation tasked with "monitoring" by visiting federally funded, non-profit, legal services programs nationwide.
DeleteI long for the days when not every idea was called socialism, marxism, communism, etc. More often than not, the person spouting such labels knows nothing of what the word actually means and is only parroting what they heard on Fox.
DeleteI did my homework on communism many, many decades ago. Changing the label for their movement doesn’t change their objective.
Delete"Fox". Drink. Projection by Admission.
DeleteAnd some of us that moved to Vancouver donate in Vancouver now
ReplyDeleteI used to give to both SOTR and the Oregon Food Bank, but don’t any longer. SOTR lost my support about 5 years ago because of their insane positions on things in Portland. They used to be a great organization who did real good work with homeless issues, but they became something different over the years. The Oregon Food Bank lost my support about a year ago with their crazy political stands that have nothing to do with local hunger issues. I now focus on very local groups like the local food pantry and a local school.
ReplyDeleteI'm a member of a men's community service organization... We, too, used to give to the Oregon Food Bank but stopped because of their nonsensical political positions on what should is an a-political need. We now give those funds to a smaller food pantry that serves a specific need and gives special-needs adults who have aged out of the education system employment opportunities.
ReplyDeleteWe used to give to the Portland Parks Foundation but stopped for the same reasons. Thanks, Joann...
“Paternalism Hinders Systemic Change” meanwhile we’ve been living under the materialism of the Multnomah County Commissioners and the matriarchy in Salem for quite some time now. I wonder why things still seem so screwed up
ReplyDeletematernalism
DeleteIt was the nonprofit pipeline (Coalition of Communities of Color, City Club) that gave us Julia Meier and the new city charter, where she is currently employed by the city to handle the "transition." (Which may be lame duck Wheeler's greatest accomplishment.) Food Bank begat GuvTina. Also Avalos...that list is endless. People who have never really run anything in the real economy, trained up in entities that are tax scams and money laudering operations--as the White quote makes clear.
ReplyDeleteThese people are priceless. Does anyone remember when local arts organizations complained that their donations had suffered because people figured their arts tax payments were funding them? It may be kind of the same here. If your non-profit is even tangentially related to the homeless industrial complex, people are going to figure you're getting plenty of homeless tax (SHS) tax money. And if you're actually paying the SHS tax, the preschool tax, and Oregon's high marginal income tax rate, as well as dealing with inflation and not getting a SALT deduction, there's probably not nearly as much left over for charitable donations as these non-profits imagine.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt all of these non-profits have supported every local tax that's come down the pike. They're finally reaping what they've sown.
wOkePB is part of the same leftist grift. No wonder they are alarmed.
ReplyDelete