Keeping Nonprofits Nonpartisan Depends on You!

Take 2 Minutes to Help Keep Politics Out of Nonprofits

A core principle of charitable nonprofits – nonpartisanship – is under attack in Washington, DC. We need you to take two minutes to have your organization express support for a protection that has protected our work from divisive partisanship for generations. Sign the Community Letter in Support of Nonpartisanship now!

Nonprofits are hailed as safe spaces in our communities because we bring people together to solve problems, help each other, and enrich the lives of many. We accomplish so much more because our board meetings are not filled with disruptive arguments about which political candidate to endorse. And we don’t have people questioning our motives and whether funds they donate to our missions will be redirected to a politician’s election campaign. Protecting nonpartisanship protects charitable organizations and our communities from divisive politics that cause strife among and within those safe places.

Bills pending in Congress (H.R. 781 & S.264) would repeal or significantly weaken the current law’s longstanding protections by inviting charitable and philanthropic organizations to endorse or oppose candidates for elected office and divert some of their assets away from their missions to instead support partisan campaigns. The legislation would blur the current clear language that conditions tax-exempt status and the ability to receive tax-deductible donations in part on not engaging in partisan, election-related activities for or against candidates for public office.

If enacted by Congress, the legislation would subject charitable nonprofits and foundations to demands for political endorsements and campaign contributions (diverting donors' money away from mission-related work to benefit politicians) and damage public trust in the work of nonprofits. Further, changes in the law are completely unnecessary. Nonprofits - and their individual staff, board members, and volunteers - already have many legal avenues to freely express their views on a wide range of public policy issues through existing laws that allow for advocacy of our missions to policymakers.

BE HEARD NOW

The Idaho Nonprofit Center has proudly joined the more than 2,000 (so far) nonprofits, foundations, and for-profit businesses from all 50 states, in signing onto the Community Letter in Support of Nonpartisanship. This letter will be delivered to our U.S. Representatives and Senators to show them that charitable nonprofits, including religious institutions, foundations, and businesses that support our work are united in opposition to efforts to politicize our community.

Here's what you can do right now:

• Sign your organization onto the Community Letter in Support of Nonpartisanship … AND
• Share the letter broadly with your board members, your colleagues at other organizations, and others in your networks so the organizations they care about can join in this vital effort to preserve the protections in current law.

​Join with us in keeping partisan politics out of nonprofits.

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​For more information on the Idaho Nonprofit Center’s position on the Johnson Amendment, click here.