 Welcome to Think Tech on OC16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and to Hawaii. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Raya Salter. In our show this week, we'll take you to a meeting of HANO, the Hawaii Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations, covering how nonprofits are doing under the new paradigm of the Trump administration. The keynote by Tim Delaney, president of the National Association of Nonprofits, addressed the new risks for nonprofits under this administration. The news remarks were entitled, Urgent Threats, What's at Risk for Nonprofits in the New Policy Landscape? Tim Delaney is a lawyer and leader. He applies his expertise in law, government, and the nonprofit sector in his role as president of the National Council of Nonprofits in Washington and as a resource and advocate for the nonprofit sector. He and the National Council of Nonprofits work to help charitable nonprofits achieve greater impact by identifying emerging trends, engaging in critical policy issues, exchanging proven practices, and advancing their missions through advocacy. Since graduating from Yale and the University of Texas, Tim has helped nonprofits in a variety of ways. Among other things, he has delivered hundreds of keynote presentations to a diverse range of organizations and groups, and has written extensively about public policy issues affecting the nonprofit sector across our country. We know that the 2016 elections altered the faces and philosophies of many policy players in local, state, and federal government. As a result, charitable nonprofits and foundations now face challenges that threaten their work and even their existence. Tim is well positioned to connect the dots and explore how these changes will affect the nonprofit sector and what can be done about it. We know that the Trump administration is making drastic budget cuts all over the landscape, and many of them are highly questionable and profoundly damaging. Some cuts are more highly publicized than others. We need to examine the impacts of these cuts on Hawaii, determine how to respond to or counteract them, and otherwise keep on nonprofits and our community going. Tim spoke about these things to the members of Hanoi at the Pomaikai Ballroom on May 11th. The meeting was very well attended and his remarks and advice were the centerpiece of the program that day. Just a slight handful of all the different advocacy groups out there for the chambers of commerce and NFIB and the defense industries and bankers and insurance and attorneys and doctors and more and more. And they get to fuel their advocacy there at the table because they earn profits that they can then reinvest in various advocacy groups to then lift their voices. They have a major seat at the table. Many people would submit that they own the table. Then we have groups on the government sector, on the right-hand side of the screen. We have the National Governors Association. We have an organization that I used to be very active in, the National Association of Attorneys General, otherwise known as NAG. Can you imagine a more discreet acronym for attorneys general than NAG? The Council of State Governors, Lieutenant Governors, Secretaries of State, Mayors, etc. I was active in some of those groups. I saw how they would come together and share information across state lines and then they could come out with more policies and sometimes they would come together and say, we don't have enough money, how can we go out and get that? And some of the times I heard people say you can do things against nonprofits and that's how you can advance some of the things that you're trying to do. And I remember thinking at the time, that's so wrong. And so I was looking forward when I was hired in 2008, when Lisa was, to be able to go to D.C. and work with all nonprofits across the country to share what's going on across state lines because the other sectors are obviously doing that. And I discovered as I was going into D.C. and trying to have these communications that, lo and behold, the nonprofit sector was naked and we needed to have at least a tiny fig leaf to cover us up so we could connect the dots across state lines and that's what we try to do in transforming the National Council of Nonprofits so that we can be connecting the various nonprofits across the country. In addition to our state associations and nonprofit allies, we also have a membership group called the state policy allies. These are national groups that have state focus in their public policy because that has been our bread and butter in the past and so the why, Girl Scouts, Goodwill, United Way, etc. have all joined us so that we can then be connecting the policy dots across state lines so that we can be lifting our voices together. Our main focus in the past has been at the state level. We could no longer focus primarily at the state level so we have pivoted to also start looking at the federal level. We have pivoted to do that in part to help inform you at what's happened at the federal level then comes down and hits you just like Dorothy's house came down and hit the witch and landed on her. Things are, it feels like they're going to be coming down and hitting you. So what we're trying to do is to slow things down up there before they hit you, do some of the translation work so that you can see what's about to happen. While a lot of the stuff I'm going to be saying is negative because of the consequences, I want to please say and reinforce we should not be demonizing our government partners. They are not the wicked witch or flying monkeys. They are not evil. They are in fact good people who care about the communities that we jointly serve. Non-profits and governments are serving the same constituents in the same communities. We are in this together. That having been said, I normally attend meetings of the state charity officials and I have to listen to them say things about us sometimes and now I'm at a table or at the podium and Hugh is sitting out there and he has to take it from me now and I'm glad I'm here on your turf to speak the truth about you Hugh because I need to speak that truth and that truth is you all here in Hawaii are blessed to have one of the most informed, most caring state charity officials in the nation. Hugh does a tremendous job of setting the tone of his colleagues, some of whom will go overboard and forget that they're not there in the business of regulating charities in order to stamp us out but rather they're there as our partners to stop the bad people from doing bad acts and Hugh is constantly pulling the teller to help direct his colleagues nationwide to that truth and I've seen him in action at the national level. I've actually been able to do a review of the Hawaii Attorney General's Office when I was in running my center for leadership ethics and public service having served as the chief deputy AG and I first met him on that trip in 2001 and I've seen from the inside and outside what a terrific job Hugh does so thanks Hugh for your leadership. The United States already spends more than all the other that I think it's the eight or nine largest countries in the world combined on defense and now we're going to take 54 billion dollars away from domestic programs in order to further enhance defense spending. That is a proposal that is not law yet and you can have a say in that. Also a proposal for massive in infrastructure spending of over a trillion dollars building the border wall the estimates had been 15 to 20 they're now starting to come in at 50 to 70 billion dollars. Massive tax cuts lost revenue so many trillions of dollars untold in part because this is the skinny budget and hasn't been fully formed and as well as the the president's new tax outline which is a one page document with some large bullets and not a lot of details. People are not quite sure what all the damage will be in terms of lost revenues. My own personal bugaboo when talking about spending priorities is that the federal government is divided into defense spending and non defense spending. I won't call it what it is which is domestic instead it's non defense and the non defense discretionary means they have discretion on what they're going to do the non defense non discretionary would be things such as Medicare and Social Security but even those there are some threats against them so we all need to be careful when we see words such as non defense discretionary to understand they're talking about the programs that regular Americans depend upon. A survey from last late last year showed that two-thirds two-thirds of Americans could not tell you what the three branches of government are. Now when our civic education is so poor that we can't identify what the three branches of government are how is it we can expect people to understand these more advanced basic ideas such as the states receive on average 30.1% of all their revenue from the federal government. So as the federal government is cutting the budget by roughly 10% for domestic spending that's going to have major consequences on the states. The states right now more than half are in deficit mode they have about seven weeks to catch up by the end of the year their fiscal year of June 30th in order to balance their books. We also have more than half the states projecting deficits for next year and if the states right now are teetering and the federal government is going to be cutting some of their revenue streams that means that the states are going to be hurting even more. When the states start hurting on revenue they in turn stop their revenue share with their local governments be they counties or cities or towns or school districts and they in turn suffer. They then stop doing things and expect the lowest part of the food chain nonprofits and foundations to then fill the gap and our policymakers are not aware of this flow. So we've got to be working with them to educate them as well because these pains are huge. Another thing we need to be educating people are is where the revenue comes from for the nonprofit sector as a whole not individual nonprofits but very few people seem to be aware that nationwide the nonprofit sector earns 32.5% of its revenue from government contracts and grants. A third only 2% comes from foundations. Last Thursday there was a coordinated ruthless attack on the Johnson amendment. It was coordinated by the White House and by Congress. There was a committee hearing by two different subcommittees in the House that do not have jurisdiction over this. The bill is not in front of them but they did it anyway and brought forward people who were talking about the repeal of the Johnson amendment and a parade of horribles that they say is preventing church leaders from speaking out on issues of the day. Well as you just heard you can do all sorts of advocating and talk about whatever issues you want on the issues of the day without any limitations. The limitation is when you are actively engaging in supporting or opposing a candidate for public office. So that's the limit. And then in the White House the president signed an executive order that is confusing at best. The White House and others were talking about how this now changed the landscape and everyone can go out and the clergy can start preaching from the pulpit. While a lot of the people that we are talking with say I go to church in part to get away from nonpartisanship and I don't want to have my preacher tell me out of vote. And that's coming from a lot of people in the religious community where 99 different religious groups and denominations have signed a petition to Congress saying don't do this. There is not a single denomination that is pushing this agenda of politicizing nonprofits so the clergy can preach from the pulpit. They can already preach from the pulpit but they want to electioneer for against candidates from the pulpit. And so some are saying that this was a great change. Others have looked at the actual language and said this is a quote empty nothing burger that there's nothing there there and it doesn't change anything. And that is just a whole lot of fluff sort of like what the government's attorneys were arguing in the sanctuary city or sanctuary jurisdiction matter that in the end they were saying oh it's really just the president using his bully pulpit. We didn't mean to change anything. And the federal judge said I'm not buying it. I'm putting the argument in my order just showing how empty it is. And so the executive order could very well in fact it already has been challenged in court and others may be challenging the executive order on so-called religious freedom because it isn't a religious freedom issue. Again there are three conditions right now. Everyone in this room probably has a driver's license and you have entered into a deal with the government that if they give you this driver's license you will follow the rules of the road. You won't do excessive speeding. You won't run over pedestrians in some basics. Well and if you do any of those then the government's going to take your license away. For 501C3s we have been given this special treatment that we're not taxed and we can receive charitable contributions. But if we violate one of those three conditions then they can take that away. If a preacher wants to endorse candidates from the pulpit she or he is free to do so. Absolutely. They have a first amendment right but then they lose the special permission, the special treatment and they get to pay taxes just like everybody else and then they can't receive contributions just like anybody else. And so there's a give and take. So this is not about religious freedom or free speech. This is about trying to weaponize nonprofits and churches for a political party and to help politicians and paid political hacks and not really to help the community or nonprofits. The day after his keynote at Hanoi, Tim appeared at our ThinkTech studios for a talk show. He focused on a bill now pending in Congress that would repeal what has been known as the Johnson amendment to section 501C3 of the Internal Revenue Code. This bill is and should be of great concern to the nonprofit sector and the country. 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. Why? What is the self-interest? What is the motivation? What is their vision for the future on this? Why would they want to peel this off 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 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 U.S.-based foundation and the chair was talking about how this will change private philanthropy as we know it where this to pass. The foundations and 4,500 other nonprofits across the country have all signed a community letter that you, your nonprofit here, nonprofits that are listening across the country can sign at www.givevoice.org. Again, that's givevoice.org. Thanks to Hano and its president Lisa Maruyama for inviting Tim Delaney to visit Hawaii and for arranging this program and allowing us to attend. More recently we caught up with Lisa Maruyama to discuss Hano and nonprofits in Hawaii and the background and implications of Tim Delaney's visit and his remarks at the Hano event. Hano is a support organization for nonprofits in Hawaii. We provide training, professional development, capacity building services, convening opportunities, networking. We provide research and data on the nonprofit sector and we're the representative voice for and about the nonprofit sector to our partners in government, business and the media. Very important especially now when more falls on the nonprofits than before especially in this administration I have to say. Now you have a pretty good pretty close connection with the National Council of Nonprofits namely Tim Delaney. Can you talk about that? Right. Tim is the CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits. We're a member affiliate of the National Council. We're one of 37 state associations of nonprofits around the country. We also have other affiliate partners. I sit on the board of the National Council and so we really appreciate the relationship. They provide a lot of information and intelligence about what's going on inside the Beltway and they also have that bird's eye view of the country really all of the nonprofit communities and they connect us to each other. And you need to be connected. You need to have a national center on this don't you? Right absolutely. It's very important. And there's a lot of best practices going on in in nonprofit communities statewide and nationwide and we were able to share those best practices with each other via the National Council of Nonprofits. So you arranged the program back a few weeks ago I guess that was in May. There was a pretty big program here in Hawaii. A Hanoi program which you invited Tim Delaney. Can you talk about it? Right. It was our town hall and Tim was brought out to kind of do a rousing kind of a fomenting of the sector. We really wanted him to give us a practical update on federal budget cut changes. What the Trump budget might portend and the implications for nonprofits at our level statewide level in terms of potential cuts. But we also wanted him to help us connect some of the policy dots to understand the threats to a charitable deduction per perhaps as it's been considered in different federal legislative vehicles. But I think most importantly what was most interesting and alarming for people to hear from Tim on is the Johnson amendment and the threat or the threat to repeal it completely or even weaken it in some way. And the Johnson amendment actually was formed to provide nonprofit charitable organizations with the protection to basically be nonpartisan. And so Tim will talk you know talked at length about some of the threats if we lose the so-called Johnson amendment and what that would mean for for our missions. Want to know more about Tim Delaney and the activities and advocacy of the National Council of Nonprofits? Check it out at councilofnonprofits.org and now let's take a look at our Think Tech calendar of events going forward. There's so much happening in Hawaii. Sometimes things happen under the radar and we don't hear much about them. But Think Tech will take you there. Remember you can watch Think Tech on OC 16 several times every week to stay corner what's happening in government industry academia and communities around the islands and the world. Think Tech broadcasts its daily talk shows live on the internet from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. Then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on the weekends. If you missed a show or if you want to replay or share our shows, they're all archived on demand on thinktechawaii.com and YouTube. The audio is on thinktechawaii.com slash radio and we post all our shows as podcasts on iTunes. See our website for link. Visit thinktechawaii.com for our weekly calendar and live stream and YouTube links or sign up on our email list and get the daily docket of our upcoming shows. Think Tech is a high tech green first amendment studio at Pioneer Plaza. If you want to join our live audience or participate in our shows, write to think at thinktechawaii.com. Give us a thumbs up on YouTube or send us a tweet at thinktechhi. We'd like to know how you feel about the issues and events that affect our lives together in these islands. We want to stay in touch with you and we'd like you to stay in touch with us. Let's think together. While you're watching any of our shows, you can call in to 415-871-2474 and pose a question or make a comment. We'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of Think Tech. But first, we want to thank our underwriters. That wraps up this week's edition of Think Tech. Remember, you can watch Think Tech on OC16 several times every week. Can't get enough of it just like Ryan does. For additional times, check out oc16.tv. For lots more Think Tech videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on Think Tech, visit thinktechawaii.com. Be a guest or a host, a producer or an intern and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii. Thanks so much for being part of our Think Tech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification and global awareness in Hawaii. And of course, the health and welfare of our nonprofit sector. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important weekly episode. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Raya Salter. Aloha everyone.