Rise Up! Fly In!
This is a Call to Action.
The 100-year-old charitable tax deduction is under imminent threat and nonprofits are gearing up for a fight.
Mark your calendar, alert your clients, your board, your CEO and urge them to participate in the “100 Years of Giving DC Fly-In” on February 15-16 to persuade Congress that it must maintain the tax law’s 100-year policy of NOT taxing dollars given to charity.
Time is short. The stakes are enormous. Here’s the deal.
- The Republican House Ways and Means Committee (where all tax bills are born) has put tax reform high on its fast track agenda.
- Their proposals could decimate giving and cut the number of Americans who can claim the charitable deduction by 80%.
- There’s a double whammy in the Trump/Republican plan. They not only want to curtail the charitable deduction, but repeal the estate tax.
- According to the Tax Policy Center if capital gains rates go down, charities get fewer gifts of appreciated property, and if Congress adopts President Trump’s proposals, individual giving would be reduced by 4.5% to 9%, or between $13.5 billion and $26.1 billion in 2017.
- The Congressional Budget Office estimates that repeal of the estate tax would decrease donations to charity by 6% to 12%.
Time to swing into action and converge on Congress. Thus, the DC Fly-In on February 15-16.
Every nonprofit’s participation is welcome but it is especially important to gain the involvement of people from the states of the key Congressional decision-makers. Here’s a list of home states of Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committee members. These are the folks we must get to first!
So, if you, your clients, your organization is based in or receives donations from any of the following states you need to act:
AZ, CA, CO, DE, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, MI, MN, MO, NE, NJ, NY, NV, NC, OH, OR, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA,
TAKE THESE ACTION STEPS
- Forward this post to friends and colleagues in other nonprofits.
- MOST IMPORTANT: Get a face-to-face meeting of nonprofit CEOs or Fundraising Execs with Representatives, Senators or their staffers.
- Do this around the Feb 15-16 “DC GIVING FLY-IN”
The Charitable Giving Coalition (CGC) and the Association of Direct Response Counsel (ADRFCO) are scheduling appointments and coordinating events.
If you’re a member of ADRFCO, contact its Executive Director Robert Tiger at bobadrfco@msn.com.
All others please contact Ali Davidson of Urban Swirski & Associates, who’s coordinating “Fly In” activities for our sector. ADavidson@urbanswirski.com
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9 is the Deadline to let them know you’ll come to DC.
YOU CAN SEE A SUMMARY OF EVENTS AND CONTACT INFO HERE
Remember: Time is short. Head for the Hill!
Roger
7 responses to “Rise Up! Fly In!”
Behavioral Science Q & A
Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]
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I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]
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Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]
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Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
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There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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Reach ADRFCO at either adrfco@msn.com or 202-293-9640. Happy to provide additonal information — not happy that the grim picture Roger paints is real.
I realize this puts me in the minority of people in the world of fundraising and philanthropy, but I can’t get too worked up about this potential change. Tax deductions are repeatedly shown to be overrated as a motivation for charitable giving. There was panic that giving would plummet in 1944 when the short form was enacted, but charitable contributions did not decline. In 1981, when the top tax bracket was lowered from 70 percent to 50 percent, charitable contributions did not decline. In 1992 and 2003, the top bracket dropped to 39% and to 35%, respectively. Yet again, charitable contributions did not decline. Perhaps this time would be different but I have my doubts.
The charitable deduction also increases inequality between the rich and poor because people with smaller incomes often don’t itemize. And, if they do, they get less of a break because they are in a lower tax bracket.
Then there’s the issue that philanthropy is not a democratic process for distributing resources. What’s funded is driven by the beliefs and values of donors — often very wealthy, privileged donors. Hence the lack of funding for social change work.
With all the fights to wage these days, this one just isn’t on my list.
Tina, I’m with you on this one. Quoting Kim Klein, 70% of US taxpayers do not itemize and can’t claim the charitable deduction anyway. And the outpouring of support we just saw for the ACLU I’m thinking might have gone to the non-deductible c4 and not their c3? I’m wondering who I might shed a tear for… the universities that already serve the wealthiest families among us and seem to have unchecked desires for more and more edifices regardless of what neighborhoods they rip down? Should I shed a tear that another college can’t launch a new business school, endow another chair in political science or set up a center for the study of poverty? Ditto the private schools. Should I weep for the hospitals that are part of a broken health care delivery system that has little to do with community wellness but a lot to do with insurance that no one can afford as hospitals spend more and more on expensive high tech medical procedures to try and balance their books? (Hmm, spend $65 million on new NICUs or $65 million on preventing premature births and cesareans in the community?) Or crying that more money won’t be able to sit unspent in DAFs? The top 1.5% of all US public charities ($10 million + in total revenues) receive somewhere on the order of 67% of all contributions, gifts, grants and special event revenues. Yes some organizations I care about may have a harder time raising funds (land trusts for example),but overall, I’m not sure that the loss to society would be all that great. There are, of course, other more compelling reasons to oppose the repeal of the estate tax.
Amen Gayle! I couldn’t agree more. Obviously. Thanks for posting!
For 100 years the US tax code has recognized, however imperfectly, that gifts for private civic use should not be subject to tax. In other words, private philanthropy and individual decision-making, has an important place in this country’s civic — and political — life. In my view, the preservation of this formal recognition is more important than the parsing of the effects of this or that tweak to the tax code. And its preservation is a condition precedent to expanding the concept to reach all taxpayers (an articulated goal of the Coalition, but first things first).
IMPORTANT P.S. to Roger’s post: for those who are concerned about the extinction of the deduction and wish to express the concern in DC on the 16th, the PRACTICAL DEADLINE for committing to attend is NOON on FEB 10. Hill office visits must be arranged and coordinated with other volunteers.
The organizations I’ve worked with have broad-based support and relatively humble gifts, on average. But in most cases the majority of their NET dollars come from the higher dollar donors in their program. Donors who give $100 or more to a national direct marketing campaign are usually doing so to a number of nonprofits, and they tend to give larger amounts to nonprofits they are closer to, like their church, school and local groups. Donors like this can easily find they are giving $5,000 or more away every year. They also tend to own homes, pay local taxes and maybe carry a mortgage. They are almost certainly itemizing and taking the charitable deduction. So without a doubt, protecting the charitable deduction is important to nonprofits who may only have a $20 average gift.
And if we don’t defend the charitable deduction, what’s next? How will we defend nonprofits being tax exempt themselves?