 We're here. It's 1 o'clock, rock. I'm Jay Fidel in Think Tech, and this is Community Matters. And we're talking to a very special guest, Tim Delaney, who was here for Hanoi, the Hawaii, what is it? Alliance. Alliance of nonprofit organizations, H-A-N-O, very important organization, and very active under Lisa Maruyama. So many things. I looked at the website and some of the email, incredible number of activities going on with Hanoi. So the Hawaii Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations is really in tune, doing a lot in Hawaii. And they brought you in, or they asked you to come. And you agreed to come, Tim Delaney? Absolutely agreed to come, in part because Lisa Maruyama is on our national board, and she exports from Hawaii to the mainland a lot of wisdom. And so we're always delighted to be able to support Lisa in paying her back for all that she does for nonprofits across the country. I'll tell you something that maybe you didn't know. She's on our board, too. She's a national leader all around here. She's having a national leader, international leader. Absolutely. So we're delighted to have her, just as you are on your board. So Tim is the president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits out of Washington. Yes, sir. Very important organization, especially in these times. Can you describe, Tim, exactly what it is that the National Council of Nonprofits does? Sure. We are the nation's largest network of charitable nonprofits. We have more than 30,000 nonprofit members from coast to coast, border to border. And we are helping nonprofits to track some trends that are happening as they're emerging. We help nonprofits with their operational insights so that great things are happening in one state. We can go across state lines. And probably most importantly these days, we're looking at public policy issues. We, for the last several years, with all the gridlock happening in D.C., we have focused primarily at the state level to look at all the state policy threats that are happening. Most Americans are not aware that Congress, over a four-year period recently, passed fewer than 600 total bills, including post offices. And they mean highways. Whereas state legislatures passed more than 135,000 bills. But in December, our board, looking at the national elections, looking at what the predictors were, said we need to be pivoting and focusing more of our resources. We had some focus on federal, but doing a lot more looking at the federal level. But you have a lot of diversity. You have 30,000 members, 30,000 nonprofits, all sizes and shapes, I'm sure, come from every vantage, every place, every point of view. When you talk about public policy in Washington, talking mostly, I guess you're talking about state and federal, but you're talking about a lot of different views. Sometimes they don't agree. How do you handle the fact that there's 30,000 people who may or may not agree on a given point of public policy? Well, in fact, there's not even 30,000 people. It's 30,000 organizations. And so then with them, they have staff and boards and the diversity is true. And one of the things we've learned to do is not to get involved in the subsector issues. As soon as an organization goes out to advocate for more funding for education in this zero-sum game or even less than zero-sum game, you're then trying to take money away from health care or the environment. And so we don't get into the subsector issues, which we often delineate as the causes, all of which are important and we fully support in our spirit. But we mobilize around the issues of the commons, where there are threats that can impact the work of all nonprofits, whether you're for or against an issue. All nonprofits need to have a reliable public policy base that they can be depending on without having to worry about governments trying to tax us as tax-exempt properties, which is happening every time. Thanks every single nonprofit that way. And to over-regulate nonprofits and to otherwise take money away from us such as changes in the tax code. So what we try to do is help informed nonprofits as well as foundations. We have in our 30,000 plus organizational members more than 800 foundation members. And so we're looking out for the impact of policy at federal, state, and local levels on the day-to-day work in missions of nonprofits and local communities. Well, you know, one of the things that I've noticed is that say there's three elements on the table, one, the public, two, the government and the full aspects of the government. And three, the nonprofit community. I suppose you could say business is in there somewhere. But talking today about nonprofits and foundations, as you say, that's changed in our lifetimes. It's changed dramatically in the last 10, 15, 20 years. Can you talk about that? Sure. There are a variety of forces, Jay, as I'm sure you've been watching and tracking yourself. What I look at in my background is I'm an attorney and I've practiced within a very large law firm for private interest. I've practiced within government on behalf of the public that way and for nonprofits. And so I've seen a lot and as a lifelong student of government, what I have watched is since the 1980s, it came out in the re-election playbook that almost all politicians ran by is, hey, if you vote for me, I'll cut your taxes. And there's been this transactional mode as opposed to what's best for the community. What are the community's needs, the true needs, then let's tax in order to meet those needs. Instead, it's been, let's cut, let's cut, let's cut. And we're now to the point where we've cut into the skin, beneath the skin, into the muscle. We've chopped off some limbs, in fact. And we've been asking in that process, nonprofits to do so much more for so many more, for so much longer, with so much less. And it has been crippling as governments have turned away from their public duties and they've expected, without articulating it, they just expect nonprofits to step forward and fill the gap. And interesting, what I've noticed and finally catches people's attention when I frame it is, as governments are cutting their budgets, they don't cut the human need that relates to that. And so the human need, the budget's revenues are going down, but the human need actually doesn't stay static, it actually grows because there's even more need created. And so that's how things have really shifted. And it's not because someone came out with a great playbook and said, well, this is how we will take care of democracy better, it's been more along politicians saying, how can I get reelected? Yeah. So the government becomes more of a re-election machine than a machine that does things and leaving it to the nonprofits. The nonprofits step up because they're more efficient, arguably their management is better. So when they do that, when they are efficient, when they handle those things and produce those outcomes, government can even sit back further. In my view, there's a spiral here. And the spiral is the more successful nonprofits are, the less government is inclined to do. They spend their time getting re-elected. And as we're having this discussion, I would buy in your articulation of it. I want to take a giant step back and anticipate you would agree. We need to, whenever we can, see the great work that people within governments are doing, whether it's the federal, state, or local level, there are some great individuals giving so much of themselves for their community. And it's becoming more difficult for them within their organizations, within government, as the resources are being cut. I showed up two weeks ago and you were on my right as my co-colleague and Sally was on my left. And then the budget got cut, Sally went away, you and I suddenly had to do all the work. And then my job gets cut and then you have to do all of our work. And that's an awfully large burden for you to carry. And notwithstanding the fact that Sally and I are now on the corners trying to clean windshields, there are a lot of people trapped in governments who are great public servants who are not given the resources. And we need to change that dynamic to help lift the voices of the people to tell the elected politicians enough is enough. This is our country, as Lincoln said, a government of the people, by the people, for the people. It's time for the people to step forward and say, this is our country, this is our government, and these are our expectations. And we are prepared to pay more in taxes. And importantly, if you look at all the ballot propositions that occur across the country, where people are stepping forward and voluntarily saying, I will pay more for education, I will pay more for the environment, I will pay more for parks, and the politicians keep saying, no, no, people don't want to pay. Actually, people want quality of life. Thank you very much. And we will pay for it. We just expect that it's going to be delivered effectively and efficiently. Yeah, absolutely. And the nonprofits are able to do that. They play, in my view, they play a larger role in the national process and for that matter, the national conversation. So the individual person may have some views. He may express them in social media, what have you. But when the National Council of Nonprofits steps up and makes a statement on public policy, that is a much stronger statement because all these people, 30,000 organizations and all the people that follow them. So you have a voice and you have a role in this new conversation with government trying to reorganize things so it's more efficient. But the question is, how far can you go? There is the Johnson Amendment. Let's talk about the Johnson Amendment. Sure. I'm delighted that you raised that because it's a very hot issue right now, which is probably why the smart man that you are, you raised it. In terms of the Johnson, let's go back to the basics. In section 501c3 of the tax code, what are government has done is declared since the early 1900s that for certain organizations, charitable, educational, religious, and others, that in exchange for us to have the benefits of being tax exempt and to receive tax deductible contributions, in exchange for these, we agree that we will do three things. In 1908, Congress said you cannot pay out any profits. So if the nonprofit brings in more revenue than it spends, it can't pay it to shareholders or can't pay off of the employees more. They can pay their employees a fair reasonable salary, but not more. So that's why we've been called nonprofits since 1908. In 1934, Congress added a provision saying you cannot engage in too much legislative lobbying. And then in 1954, then Senator Johnson, who was the minority leader in the Senate and the Senate majority of the Republican Party accepted his amendment that added the third condition. And the third condition is that charitable nonprofits, religious nonprofits, foundations, educational institutions, for example, in exchange for those two benefits, we cannot go out and actively or passively go out and endorse or oppose candidates for political office. And the actual language speaks in terms of we may not support or oppose any candidate for public office. And so that has proved for the last 60 plus years has protected the nonprofit community from being polarized and divided by partisan politics. How does that work? Just suppose hypothetically, you allowed people, you know, to take positions, nonprofits to take positions on candidates. What would happen in the worst case analysis? Well, the worst case analysis has been proposed by the president has been proposed by the the chair of the Ways and Means Community House right now. And there's a bill that was introduced to totally repeal that. Now to totally repeal the Johnson amendment would mean, among other things, that, let's say that you're the nonprofit. I am a donor. I then come to you and say, I will give you $50,000 or $5,000, whatever amount I want to give. If you endorse that candidate, and if you don't, I'm then going to give the money over here to this other organization. Well, suddenly, you're feeling I need to get that revenue. So I'll trade my integrity in order to endorse what the donor said. Or here's another hypothetical. I then give you the money and tell you here's $50,000, you can keep 2000, but I want you to then send the money over to the candidate of my choice. I want the other 48,000 to go over there. That's the dark money that's been polluting the 501C 4s and the other organizations, Citizens United all over again, except here, there's the public subsidy of I get the tax right off as I give it to you to funnel over elsewhere. Now, as that happens, then the organizations that say, absolutely no, I'm not going to do that. Then even donations to them go down, because people are saying, wait a minute, if I wanted to give to a candidate, I will do it directly. I don't want to run the risk of a nonprofit channeling that money out there. And so there's the donations will go down. Or yet another problem, which is you and I are on the same board. And we are coming into the boardroom and you say, hey, Fred was my fraternity brother, I want us to endorse him for city council. And then I say, well, that's great, but I'm a business partner with Sally's. And I really appreciate it if we as a board endorse Sally instead. Suddenly, our board is involved in all these disruptive discussions, and it becomes alliances who likes Jay more than him. And it's not about the mission of the organization, but this huge distraction. And then finally, many of us go into our houses of worship to pray and to seek guidance and counsel. And we often use it almost as an escape from the secular world and the craziness that's going on. And the idea of having my preacher telling me that in order to get into heaven, I have to vote for the candidate of his or her choice. That is frightening. And these proposals to change the Johnson amendment to either repeal it or to substantially weaken it, they're all being couched in terms of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Well, who can be against that? Well, most Americans wouldn't until you peel back the layers or you just open the hood and look at what's actually being proposed. And it's not freedom of speech. If a preacher wants to stand there and from the pulpit and to endorse a candidate, they're free to do it. It's just that they don't get these two special benefits. And they will then have the opportunity to pay taxes like everybody else and to not receive charitable contributions like everybody else. And so if in order to get those two special benefits, we have to comply with three different requirements. In an analogy, if if I might, which would be you have a driver's license. When you went in, you took a driver's test, you had the vision checked, and there are all these things. And they said in order to drive, you have to wear your glasses. And you agree in order to have the privilege of driving, then I will not violate traffic laws. I will not purposely try to run over pedestrians, some basics. And if you violate those, then you or fail to comply, then you lose your license. And it's the same thing with this. And yet, there are some who are trying to politicize and actually weaponize the nonprofit, the charitable, religious and philanthropic communities. And that's why we as nonprofits are standing up to say no. Yeah, Tim Delaney, President and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, joining us today on Community Matters, talking about nonprofits and and foundations in a time of change. Very important discussion. We come back from this break. I want to talk about the ripple effects of this in the community under the Constitution in the future of America. If this if this happens, we'll be right back. We Lucas host of Hawaii is my mainland every Friday at 3pm on think Tech Hawaii. We talk about things of interest to those of us who live here. And my past blogs can be found at kawaii Lucas.com. Okay, I didn't listen. Okay, we're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fidel here on Community Matters. We're talking about nonprofits and foundations in a time of change with Tim Delaney, who was the president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits. He's here with Hano, the Hawaii Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations. And he's been talking, been running around town enjoying Hawaii and enjoying the people. And he's we enjoy him right here at the studio. Thank you for coming down. Thanks, Jay. Delighted to be here. So what are the what are the larger effects here? I mean, the country is under, in many ways, constitutional crisis over the past few months. And it seems like every time you open the New York Times, there's another crisis issue. Do you do you consider this possibility, this bill, to repeal the Johnson Amendment constitutional rising to a constitutional crisis level? The constitutional crisis might be what's happening with the investigations of Russia. And in terms of trying to disrupt our democracy in the last elections, and what they might do in future elections, if we don't find out exactly what happened and put it into it. There's certainly something that can be challenged constitutionally with the executive order that the president just signed last week. There was on this issue on this issue. Last Thursday, there was a coordinated attack on the Johnson Amendment by the White House and by the certain people in Congress. First, by Congress, there was a hearing of two subcommittees that came together. They heard from several proponents of change in this to allow religious groups to be endorsing candidates. And then over in the Rose Garden at the same time, the president was signing an executive order that was to, among other things, section two, depending on how you read it, because there are alternative views of it. It purports to say that religious groups can go out and begin endorsing candidates. That's the way it was sold. That was the whole image that was portrayed. And the president had told various evangelicals that he would go out and, using his words, he vowed in February to totally destroy the Johnson Amendment. And with his actions last week, he signed this, suggesting that people were then free to endorse the religious organizations were free to endorse. Now, can that be legally have a statute that says the opposite? Well, in fact, there is the requirement in the oath of office in the Constitution to faithfully execute. There is also the issue that presidents are not authorized to do any line item vetoes on substance, let alone line item veto, something that was passed 60 plus years ago signed by President Eisenhower, re-opped by President Nixon, re-opped by President Reagan, and then by President Reagan again, without any controversy all these years, and now there's a desire by some to politicize aspects of nonprofits. So that's what was suggested was occurring. There are others who are reading the same executive order saying, wait a minute, it's very confusing, but it actually doesn't change anything. It's been described as empty. It was described by one columnist as a nothing burger. And so you have competing ideas out there on what it does. Now, in fairness to a religious organization, they're getting the message that they can, but maybe they can't. And that's a lot of confusion. People need to know what's going on. But for the charitable nonprofits, or educational nonprofits, or foundation C3s, all those organizations are then being told that the government is giving greater rights to religion than to non-religious. And that's what our establishment clause, or probably properly called the anti-establishment clause, we were not going to have our government give greater rights to certain religions. And so that violates that clause. There are a couple of other things that are especially problematic with the language, because it says that any individual that it directs the the Treasury Department to not take adverse actions against quote, any individual house of worship or other religious organization that then is engaged in this partisan activity. Well, you're a lawyer. Can you tell me what any other religious organization means? Does I know generally what a house of worship is, but any other religious organization does that include Notre Dame? Why should Notre Dame have a greater voice than Yale or Harvard? And does it include the Salvation Army or the Young Men's Christian Association or the Young Women's Christian Organization? And so we have these questions on what does it mean? Well, under due process in the Constitution, the laws are vague and ambiguous. And this is a law in the form of an executive order. And so it is either it means nothing, or if it means something, it violates the Constitution. Is anybody taking this up in court? So far, one organization in Wisconsin has filed suit. And there may be additional litigation just as it's been the executive order on immigration was challenged. And then the follow up order on immigration was challenged. And then the executive order and sanctuary jurisdictions was challenged. And in all three of those instances, the federal courts as the neutral arbiters have stepped in and said, wait a minute, you can't do this. And so that's what they are looking at in Wisconsin. And again, I anticipate and other places. So just to just to figure out what's going on, there are people in Congress, I presume there are Republicans who are who would like to see this happen, would like to take the Johnson Amendment or 501c3, which would change the law as you and I have known it for our lifetime. You know, why? Why what what what is the self interest? What is the motivation? What is their vision for the future on this? Why would they want to appeal this or 501c3? What I have read and what I have heard is that there have been a couple of organizations that have been promoting this. Their funders want to do this. They see an advantage for particular political interest of theirs to have the freedom to go out and take all this additional action. Again, they already have the freedom to do it. They already have the liberty to do it. It's just that if they are violating those three conditions, they are not to receive the special treatment of being tax exempt and getting the tax deductible contributions. And so that's where the whole freedom discussion is elusive because they're styling it as though it's freedom of speech and freedom of religion. But not really. But it's not really. It's all window dressing. And when you look inside, you see it's not really there. And the consequences could be horrific. I was presenting to the head of actually the board of a major US based foundation. And the chair was talking about how this will change private philanthropy as we know it were this to pass there. The foundations and 4500 other nonprofits across the country have all signed a community letter that you your nonprofit here nonprofits on that are listening across the country can sign at www give voice.org. Again, that's give voice.org. Give give voice.org. Correct. And can sign that community letter to tell Congress, no, don't do this. Again, more than 4500 have already signed it. These are nonprofit charities, religious organizations, the National Council of Churches, the Ford Foundation is a foundation. The Mott Foundation is a foundation that signed it. Our organization signed it. Hano signed it. The Hawaii Community Foundation assigned it and for profit businesses have also signed it. Now there's a separate letter that more that 99 are religious and denominational groups have signed saying the same thing with major denominations saying they do not want this. There is not a single religious congregation, excuse me, were religious denomination that has stepped forward to say that they want this. And so these are are factions that are saying that they want this. And so they signed it. But in fact, there is not an overwhelming calling for this massive change that would politicize and weaponize nonprofits, taking us off of our mission of trying to solve community problems and instead trying to be hijacked, hijacked into political operatives. All these charities would become political instruments for a few of these charities. And so I vote through those charities. It's awful. You size it up well. Thank you for that sound bite. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. And again, it is just going to be so problematic and it will transform our society as we have known it. Because right now you drive down the street, you see the Baptist Church or the Episcopal Church. The Republican Baptist Church and the Democratic... That's what you would see if that happens. But that's what you would see. And you don't see the United Way Democratic chapter or United Way Republican chapter. You see one United Way that is there for all Americans. This wasn't a campaign issue, was it? This wasn't even raised in the campaign. It is something that then candidate Trump talked about when he was in certain places with audiences. But it was not widely debated in part because it would be so damaging. And most people can see it once they realize what is being proposed. This is part of that group of issues where the administration is pulling the wings out of traditionally settled matters like the EPA, for example. And just disrupting everything with profound possibilities. There would be profound possibilities if this passes. So what's the likelihood that it will pass? Are you having a significant success in getting people to speak out against this amendment? More people are starting to as they learn about it. And that's the power of your program. That's the importance of cable access. It's the importance of public radio and public television in order to get information and news out to people so that democracy can be run by the people. And we need to get that information out there so that your viewers and listeners know that they can take action. Well, Tim, as camera one, talk to them. They're right there. Tell them what they can do, what they should do in order to support the National Council of Nonprofits on this. Thanks, Jay. What you can do to help and not just help the National Council of Nonprofits, not just help Hano, but to help yourself in order for your country to be in a better position. What you can do is go out and go to www.givevoice.org and sign that community letter. Then what you can do is call your two representatives in Congress and your two senators in Congress and your representative wherever you live and let them know that this is something that you firmly disagree with. You want to retain the protection in the Johnston Amendment. Don't mess with 60 plus years of proven reliable law. And then what you can do is contact your friends, your families, your neighbors, other non-profits, your for-profit employers, whomever, to get them to sign on to that too and call their members of Congress. Let your voice be heard. This is your country and do you want to have it every place you go be partisan and with raw politics ripping us apart? Or do you want to say we need to have one safe place where we can come together as Americans through our non-profits to solve problems collectively together without the division and the posturing of politics, but rather get into solving the issues of the day? Wow, wish I'd said that. Thank you, Tim Delaney. It's been great having you here. Jay, it's been my delight and the next time I'm in Hawaii, which I hope will be very soon, I hope we can visit again. Aloha. Aloha.