Non-profits, politics, and Trump Foundation

Nonprofit Organizations: There are 1,571,056 tax-exempt organizations, including:

1,097,689 public charities
105,030 private foundations
368,337 other types of nonprofit organizations, including chambers of commerce, fraternal organizations and civic leagues. (Source: NCCS Business Master File 4/2016)

How many of these non-profits, particularly the foundations which must choose which non-profits to fund, could survive the scrutiny that has been lavished on the Trump Foundation by people who hate the President?

People employed in the non-profit world wouldn't agree with me, but I believe we have too many, that they are too political, and too rich with too many getting their money from government grants, where you "dance with the one who brung you." Non-profits account for 9.2% of all wages and salaries paid in the United States and their share of GDP was 5.3% in 2014.

https://nccs.urban.org/data-statistics/quick-facts-about-nonprofits?

It’s not about breakfast cereal anymore

Today I received in my e-mail a notice about The Racial Equity Anchor Collaborative funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Reading through the blurb it appears to be an organization to funnel voters into the Democrat Party because there's no policy or plans, just vague buzz words about racial healing, equity and full potential: Nine organizations.

• NAACP;
• Advancement Project’s national office;
• Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF);
• Demos;
• Faith in Action;
• National Congress of American Indians,
• National Urban League;
• Race Forward;
• UnidosUS.

Seems to have evolved out of the Ferguson riots 4 years ago.

We have so many wealthy foundations and non-profits throwing money at social justice and racial equity projects I'm beginning to see them as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. I'm wondering if the bureaucracy of the NGOs (there are 1.5 million in the U.S.) isn't rivaling that of the federal government.

Sustainable--a growing industry for non-profits

 

 

 I wonder if this sustainable fiber and textile advocacy group knows they have a racist photo of cotton on their website July 2017 report. A customer in Hobby Lobby recently took to social media to be outraged about cotton stalks in the store, and a college president apologized to black students for having them in decorative floral arrangements in his home.

 

 I think this is an organization to fight "fast fashion" which provides much of the market for cotton. The word "sustainable" has become a political buzz word; always be careful when you see it.

"This paper argues that U.S. foundations currently have a key moment of opportunity to invest in the sustainable fiber and textile sector in ways that will mobilize consumer awareness and accelerate improvements in many stages of the textile production  chain. Such improvements would in many cases tie into and further strengthen the sustainable agriculture movement in the U.S. and abroad. Sustainability in textiles also involves many aspects of toxics reduction and labor issues, thus highlighting the close connections between environmental and human health impacts and presenting opportunities  for foundations already involved in environmental  health and justice work. http://www.safsf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SAFSF_CommThrd_D7_FINAL.pdf 

Other people's money

It should be amusing, but isn't. The liberal media and the social media are pretending that they've just found out foundations use "other people's money." It was a big story in Washington Post today.

Of course. That's the whole point of those laws. I could find a cause, like a school or clinic in Haiti, set up a 501c3 with my "wealth," and ask you to contribute. You get a tax break, after IRS approval, and I get to shelter my wealth for my family legacy.

Then my 501c3, which can't be for a political cause, could set up a 501c4 to support my ideological views. All these laws were set up by our government to protect the wealthy, especially the wealthy in government, and to buy influence. Some do a lot of good; others just launder money for return to their party. Planned Parenthood which kills the unborn (for a good cause--population control of poor and black) gets money from private donors, other foundations, and from the government, then in return, it supports those candidate, mostly Democrats, who support legal abortion. The Gates Foundation has many good projects (better to give it away than pay the government outrageous taxes), but "population control" has been one of the requirements for accepting the help in Africa. Controlling black populations, regardless of country, seems to be a liberal cause. 

However, the Clintons have something to sell; Donald Trump doesn't. Did Washington Post, which is currently investigating Trump's foundation, investigate Obama's brother Malik's foundation which had no problem getting 501c3 status from the IRS while conservative groups waited years, his "charity" seems to be funding his wives--he's a Muslim polygamist like his father.

Donor beware

" A morbidly obese man hailed by Michelle Obama for setting a good example for Americans by slimming down turns out to be a sex offender. A race-obsessed Black Lives Matter activist turned newspaper columnist insists he’s African-American even though he’s not. A holier-than-thou Latino actress aims to politically empower fellow Latinos – but only if they’re Democrats. These three people have all created or had connections to sketchy non-profit organizations."  Foundation Watch

Cash for influence

“Almost a decade ago, as Hillary Clinton ran for re-election to the Senate on her way to seeking the presidency for the first time, the New York Times reported on her unusually close relationship with Corning, Inc., an upstate glass titan. Clinton advanced the company's interests, racking up a big assist by getting China to ease a trade barrier. And the firm's mostly Republican executives opened up their wallets for her campaign.

During Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, Corning lobbied the department on a variety of trade issues, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The company has donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to her family's foundation. And, last July, when it was clear that Clinton would again seek the presidency in 2016, Corning coughed up a $225,500 honorarium for Clinton to speak.”

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/16/8614881/Hillary-Clinton-took-money

Even the American Institute of Architects. . .

Who is asking for favors from the Clintons?

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2015/05/16/in-one-fell-swoop-clinton-foundation-exposes-dozens-in-media-with-list-of-donors-204968

Here's the list of all the media figures who are donors to the Clinton Foundation. With all the established charities with good track records that are not tied to political figures, I wonder why both liberals and conservatives would be hedging their bets that our next president would be Hillary? The Clinton Foundation gives a pittance to charity--most goes to staff and PR. And to buy influence and publicity. I'm not really asking, I know the answer.

The Clinton Foundation

Does the Clinton Super PAC, aka The Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation have special guidelines for transparency and taxes? Charity Navigator has them right up there with Al Sharpton's charity. How desperate is the Democrat party which in the last two decades has moved so far to the left it is unrecognizable to me, a former Democrat?

“From 2005 through 2011 investors in Uranium One reportedly donated to the Clinton Foundation. In 2010 Bill Clinton took $500,000 from an investment bank to give a speech in Russia. The bank had a “buy” rating on Uranium One stock and connections to the Russian government. Eventually the Kremlin gained 100 percent control over Uranium One through a subsidiary of Rosatom, a corporation owned by the Russian government.

Secretary Clinton was supposed to disclose the millions of dollars that the chairman of Uranium One gave to her foundation through his family foundation while various agencies within the Obama administration were reviewing the deal.

So now the expansionist successor nation to the Soviet Union, which seeks to revive its old empire, controls a large swath of American uranium that is needed to produce nuclear weapons. Multiple federal agencies apart from the State Department signed off on the deal, so it is inconceivable that President Obama did not know about the circumstances that led to the Russian takeover of Uranium One. And remember that Obama, who is now working hard to help the Islamic Republic of Iran get nuclear weapons, was caught on a hot mike at a nuclear summit in March 2012 assuring then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, “After my election I have more flexibility.” “ http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/matthew-vadum/the-clinton-cash-for-favors-program

Billionaire Sandlers support left wing causes

“Herb and Marion Sandler made billions of dollars in the mortgage business they sold, and many observers across the political spectrum have noted the harmful role they played in the housing meltdown. Yet their philanthropic efforts, tilted heavily to the far left, have helped them maintain respectability even among those who criticize non-leftist financiers. Mrs. Sandler died in 2012, but her husband soldiers on with their billion-dollar family foundation, supporting the kind of Saul Alinsky-type community organizers who were so helpful when the Sandlers wanted pressure put on business rivals.” Foundation Watch, Feb. 5, 2015
http://capitalresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/FW0215.pdf

Kicking a gift horse in the teeth

Last year Wal-Mart donated $3 million to New York City charities, including $1 million to the New York Women’s Foundation, which offers job training, and $30,000 to Bailey House, which distributes groceries to low-income residents. It’s donated some $22.5 million all across New York state. In 2011, it donated $4 million to a city program that offers summer jobs to young people and since 2004 it has donated $16 million to the city’s charter schools. But corporate good will flies in the face of progressives' agenda so NYC Council has order Wal-Mart to stop. Meanwhile, unemployment and poverty in NYC is way above the national average, and under the leftist regime of De Blasio I suspect will get worse.

http://247wallst.com/retail/2014/06/07/new-york-city-ensures-no-good-deed-wal-mart-does-will-go-unpunished/#ixzz3447pq2rV

Wal-Mart the company and foundation gave more than $1 billion in cash and in-kind contributions during 2012, a record for Wal-Mart or any retailer. If De Blasio doesn't want the money, maybe your organization could use it.

http://foundation.walmart.com/apply-for-grants/local-giving

To think we all laughed at “community organizer” in 2008

It’s not ACORN—it’s Surdna (Andrus spelled backwards after a very successful businessman who came up through poverty). “New York’s Surdna Foundation used to focus on the usual left-wing causes: environmentalism and so-called smart growth, community development, and the arts.  Sensing an opportunity when Barack Obama became U.S. president, the charity changed its mission to promote community organizing above all else. Its benefactor would not have approved of its old mission statement or the new mission statement.”

https://www.capitalresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/FW0114.pdf

Founded by a practical, hard-nosed,
free market-loving capitalist, over the
past century the Surdna Foundation
Inc. was transformed into a hotbed of revolutionary
radicalism. Created by legendary
industrialist John Emory Andrus, the New
York City-based foundation now adheres to
the Weltanschauung of extremist agitator Saul
Alinsky and Alinsky acolytes like Barack
Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Andrus
was no utopian, holier-than-thou dreamer or
activist. . . .

Surdna’s radical objective is to remake
America in the image of a European social
democracy and to minimize the traditional
forms of American self-governance. The
foundation prefers that freedom and individual
rights take a back seat to equality
and the sacred cow of coercive redistributionism
through the agency of the federal
government.

Crimes against humanities

"The economic downturn is having a dramatic and deleterious effect on historical societies, libraries, museums and other cultural institutions around the country. A combination of plunging endowments, reduced grant and foundation support, and budget cuts on the federal, state and local levels has led to job losses, service cuts, and outright closures from coast to coast." There's more.

And with Democrats hunting down the "rich" to hound them at every turn--health "reform," cap and trade--destroying the people who create jobs, and inviting the unions to a job summit, we can expect even more institutions that depend on donations and charity to struggle, cut hours, or close.

Housing and health hype

The non-profits, government agencies, and foundations are thoroughly invested in the housing/health/wealth gospel and it controls every aspect of funding from the seed grant to do the study from the foundation, to the energizing and funding and marketing of the non-profits, and the distribution of your tax money to rehab or create "affordable housing." There are huge holes in this idea, dream, nightmare, fantasy of upside down reasoning.

Housing generally represents an American family’s greatest single expenditure, and, for homeowners, their most significant source of wealth. Given its importance, it is not surprising that factors related to housing have the potential to help—or harm—our health in major ways.

The idea that a decent, affordable home not only builds families, strengthens neighborhoods, but improves health, provides access to better food, which makes people choose more fruits and vegetables, and loose weight, and want to use bike paths which are better in safe neighborhoods and go past good schools built according to green regulations which in turn improves the health and wealth and the neighborhood, yada, yada, it goes on and on and on. Reading through this gospel of faith in the partnerships of government, businesses, non-profits, church groups, and academe is enough to make a sane person scream STOP! So don't try to read too many annual reports of funding streams at one time.

You're not going to believe this, but the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation has actually done a study on the benefits of recess ($18 million)

In 2007, RWJF issued “Recess Rules,” a report that named school recess the single most effective strategy for increasing physical activity among children. Yet recess remains undervalued as little funding is dedicated to improving the quality of recess.

If this follows their other reports, there will be millions from the federal government shoveled into state coffers to study and support recess--but for obesity management, and green regulations, with a possible tie-in to housing if they can find one.

Occasionally there are major breakthroughs in legislation or public health that significantly affect vast numbers of people. The 1964 Civil Rights Act comes to mind. Or the polio vaccine. Fluoridation of water. Addition of various vitamins to milk and flour. Standard pure water and plumbing codes. The interstate highway system. USDA meat inspection standards. The Homestead Act. But even these all had negative consequences and didn't benefit everyone. I'm sure the Native Americans weren't thrilled with the homesteaders. The interstate highway system probably destroyed lots of prime farm land and made developers disgustingly rich in the cities as vast neighborhoods were condemned for public use.

No, I'm talking about our most recent boondoggle--the fueling of the housing boom between 1995-2006 to "empower" low and moderate income families and more minorities. According to USAToday 49% of the increase in homeowners were minority, and many were not ready financially for a mortgage. Many of the community leaders and government officials pushing this were quite wealthy themselves, never really stopping to realize that they weren't wealthy because of their home--stucco, brick or vinyl clad. Very few saw their dreams dashed because of predatory lending by banks or fraud (about 9%), but by their own judgement and poor managing skills. Then wealth investors got into the act through various loop holes.

And we still have neighborhoods with bad housing stock, boarded up houses, druggies and vagrants wandering the streets, women and children living without a husband and father in the home, poor schools, bad transportation, and sprawling suburbs. Trillions and trillions wasted, first in the programs, now stolen from our retirement accounts and failed businesses, all for a gospel that didn't save. Yes, people need safe, decent places to live but just as we learned with the public housing high rises built in the 1950s, then the low rise townhouse public housing of the 60s and 70s, and the voucher plans of the 80s and 90s, housing itself doesn't change the person--the person changes (downgrades or upgrades, destroys or improves) the housing.

Note: my husband just returned from a meeting at the Westerville Community Center. He was raving about the facilities--swimming pools, indoor tracks, lounges, art studios, aerobics room, gymnasiums, magnificent installed art and sculpture--you name it, they had it--and a full parking lot. Are the people in Westerville wealthier, happier, or healthier than the people in Upper Arlington or Worthington? I doubt it. But the gap between their facility and ours (we don't have one) is just as big as the housing gaps between UA and Hilltop.

Men: are you depressed?

And I don't mean about a serious international incident as Joe Biden promised us if we elected Obama. No, this is the depression we were told about in the Surgeon General's report in 1999: About 20 percent of adults will experience depression during their lifetime. Within this 20 percent, an estimated 6.4 million American men will suffer from depression each year. So you see, you are already a minority in this problem, just by being a male, because women have cornered this health problem.

But there's no money in studying depressed white men even though they would be the majority of this minority--German Americans, Irish Americans or descendants of Swiss Mennonites. So "disparity" is the necessary key word to get funding just as it is in many lucrative health grants. If you can't find it in the lab with real research and cure it, or develop a drug to treat it, then find it in the data, graphs, charts or neighborhood anecdotes and put people into race based studies. On November 6, 2008 there was a conference, Symposium on Health Disparities in Male Depression, supported by a $25,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to alert the various professional organizations, non-profits, insurance companies and government officials of the cultural barriers, stigma and treatment minority men suffer with depression. When wealthy foundations provide this kind of money to launch something, it is the signal that prevention and policy money from the government will be forthcoming for this problem. Oink, oink. Come to the trough, for all is ready.

Fortune 100 Foundations Lean far to the Left

From article summary: "Although many believe selfinterested corporations lavish funds on politically conservative groups, it just isn’t true. A painstaking analysis of tax returns for Fortune 100 foundations reveals the nonprofits overwhelmingly favor groups that push for bigger government and tougher regulations." Of the 53 nonprofits of the top 100 which donated or funded political causes or candidates, the ratio was 14.5:1--$59 million for the left, and $4 million for the right. Read the story here

If this defies common wisdom (not to mention common sense), there must be a reason. As in most things--you only need to follow the money. Or follow the banker or CEO into the halls of the Senate. They give to left leaning, pro-big-government politicians because the regulation or influence will hurt their competition. Why would big oil or big automaker or big lumber be funding and supporting environmental issues that on the surface would seem to be anti-business-as-usual. Well, obviously, it's the small guy with fewer resources and smaller R & D budget who will be hurt, not the mega-behemoths of industry.

La Raza, for instance, which wants the Southwest returned to Mexico in fact if not in treaty or out and out war, is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the wealthy foundations of the top Fortune 100 companies. Now why do you suppose big business has a stake in keeping wages down through illegal immigration? Hmmmm. Banks also are heavily investing in Hispanic causes, which tend to be sympathetic to amnesty and illegals. James Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has made political contributions to high-profile Democratic lawmakers and candidates, including New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama, and extremely small amounts to a few Republicans (I'm betting they are RINOs). The JPMorgan Chase foundation gave 2.6% of its giving dollar to political causes, all of which were on the left.

So the next time you read or hear a whiny liberal or progressive legislator, journalist, academic or bloggers moaning about the conservatives being so rich, look for those crossed fingers behind their back or keyboard--just 'taint so.