Omaha Community Foundation’s Post

As we approach the 2024 US presidential election, many nonprofit professionals wonder if and how politics will affect this year’s charitable giving landscape. In this article, we examine research that helps us understand the relationship between nonprofit fundraising and political giving. Read it here 🔗 https://bit.ly/4bSpEA4 #Election #Philanthropy #Nonprofits #CharitableGiving

📩 Philanthropy is empowering nonpartisan organizations for a fair voting season in the latest initiative, All by April. EGA members, Amalgamated Foundation, Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, Libra Foundation, Park Foundation, Tides, Wallace Global Fund, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, THE JPB FOUNDATION, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund are among 20 foundations participating in All by April Effort. This initiative aims to provide early grants to protect voting and elections and ensure diverse voter participation. 🙌 "Getting money to nonprofits early can help them plan, hire staff, and prepare for a general election that, with early voting and mail-in ballots, will begin in earnest long before November," said EGA member, Keesha Gaskins-Nathan, Director of Democratic Practice-US program at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. 👉Read more: https://lnkd.in/eGbNvcuX

It's the season that fundraisers start to feel nervous about the upcoming election and its impact on revenue. It's not uncommon to observe a temporary dip in gifts during the week of the elections. Charitable giving can take a backseat as individuals focus on casting their votes and awaiting results. However, this downturn is often short-lived and post-election donations tick back up as attention returns to pressing social issues and community needs. The team at Masterworks continues to analyze election trends. We found that election years tend to have lower gift counts the week of elections than in other years. However, overall, giving in the seasons remains unchanged. https://lnkd.in/guax6QhY

Amid a downturn in democracy funding, our guest experts emphasize the urgency for early philanthropic engagement in 2024. They stress the vital role of timely donor support to empower grassroots initiatives and sustain democratic processes. In this guest opinion, Alexis Anderson-Reed and Karundi A. Williams call on donors to move money as early as possible this year, in the face of a significant retraction in democracy funding since the 2020 cycle. #DemocracyFunding #PhilanthropyInAction #CivicEngagement #VoterSupport #FundDemocracy #ElectionIntegrity #NonprofitFunding #CivilRightsProtection #SocialJustice #DonorsForDemocracy

Funders who care about democracy should fund nonpartisan access to the ballot "early and often." Private or public foundations can give grants to support voting, but orgs need those funds, well, yesterday. Funders who want to fund voting-related activities (but aren't sure what's allowed) can connect with Matlin Legal for help: https://lnkd.in/gBRe6kkP.

Here's your reminder not to wait until the end of the year or when you get a specific ask to support your favorite nonprofits and community organizations, especially those working to strengthen our communities and safeguard our democracy! Getting dollars to organizations doing good work is a year 'round effort and key to maximizing impact.

American Nonprofits: Let's get citizens registered and empowered to vote. Every vote counts! Nonprofit VOTE has a lot of resources to help you be efficient and effective AND keep you in compliance with regulations (NO partisan politicing! YES to education and advocacy). #voterregistration #votereducation #Nonprofits #communitygrowth

BREAKING: Tides Foundation, in partnership with doers and donors, is committing $200 million to voter engagement and mobilization in 2024. We’re granting most of it by today, so that grassroots nonprofits have the time they need to build connections with the communities they serve. We’re leveraging a $10 million grant from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott to Tides’ Healthy Democracy Fund to fight voter suppression, combat disinformation, and invest in long-term pro-democracy infrastructure for years to come. We’re supporting ballot measure campaigns to protect abortion access, raise the minimum wage, and prevent unconstitutional gerrymandering. We’re embracing complexity and supporting both 501(c)(3) organizations and the charitable activities of 501(c)(4) organizations—maximizing the impact of Tides’ democracy funding in a way that’s totally allowable. The 2024 election is a watershed moment for our democracy. We’re all in.

..."Nonprofit voter registration, and the get-out-the-vote activities that usually accompany it, have become the heart of a billion-dollar industry in America. According to Candid’s Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy database, since 2011 nearly 60,000 grants have been made for “Voter Education, Registration, and Turnout” and “Civic Participation,” benefiting 15,000 different organizations to the tune of $5.9 billion. Most of the largest grantors and grantees in this industry are left-leaning. Despite IRS rules prohibiting 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit groups from engaging in partisan electioneering, it has long been an open secret that the purpose of their work is to register voters from favorable demographics in order to help get Democrats elected."...

Yes! Early and often! Funders should fund community civic engagement efforts early and often. From volunteering to leadership development, from census through redistricting, from naturalization to voter registration, and from neighborhood building to community organizing. #Democracy #Civic Engagement #Election2024 #Leadership #Redistricting #FairMaps2030 #Census2030