Gene Takagi & Amy Sample Ward: Prudence In Our Political Environment
Following from our December episode, “Is It Paranoia Or Prudence?,” Gene Takagi and Amy Sample Ward return with updates from the grass roots on DEI, USAID and other spending freezes, major media capitulation, and information on a potential reincarnation of last year’s H.R. 9495 bill. Most importantly, they share advice and resources on how to cope—and keep your nonprofit in the safest posture. Gene is our legal contributor from NEO Law Group. Amy is our technology contributor and CEO of NTEN.
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And welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the embarrassment of metathiciaophobia if you changed your routine and missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer Kate with what’s on the menu. Hey, Tony. I hope our listeners are hungry for prudence in our political environment. Following from our December episode, is it paranoia or prudence? Gene Duagi and Amy Sample Ward return with updates from the grassroots on DEI, USAID, and other spending freezes, major media capitulation, and information on a potential reincarnation of last year’s HR 9495 bill. Most importantly, they share advice and resources on how to cope and keep your nonprofit in the safest posture. Gane is our legal contributor from NO Law Group. Amy is our technology contributor and CEO of N10. On Tony’s Take 2. The activist group I co-host. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor Box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, Donorbox.org. Here is prudence in our political environment. It’s always a genuine pleasure to welcome back Jean and Amy. Our esteemed contributors at nonprofit Radio, Gene Takagi, our legal contributor and principal of NEO, the nonprofit and exempt organizations law group in San Francisco, he edits that wildly popular nonprofit law blog.com and is a part-time lecturer at Columbia University. You’ll find the firm at Neo Law Group and Jean is at GTA GTAK. Amy Sample Ward, our technology contributor and CEO of N10, they were awarded a 2023 Bosch Foundation fellowship. Yeah, but what have you done lately? That was two years ago. And their most recent co-authored book is The Tech That Comes Next about equity and inclusiveness in technology development. They’re on Blue Sky as Amy Sample Ward. Gene and Amy, welcome back. I never don’t laugh when you say podfather. It puts me in such a good mood, you know, we’re about to talk about like so many sad trombones, but we started with Podfather, so at least I got a laugh while on mute. Thank you very much. I’m glad I’m glad you’ve heard it many times and it still makes you laugh. And can I answer your rhetorical question about As if I had not done anything, which I appreciate in like a there’s a very fatherly way of being like, what have you even done, um, but a plug that was not on our agenda to talk about today, so I’ll just say it and then we can move on with the agenda, yes, go ahead. Um, incredible N0 Community Committee gave feedback and Tristan and I, um, and FUA have refined all that feedback and then the newest version of the equity guide is about to be published, the equity guide for nonprofit technology. That’s Tristan Penn, and then like a whole, you know, a couple dozen community members who met previously and gave feedback about. You know, uh, none of the previous equity guide content is like gone, but I think as time continues to change, we always wanted it to be a living resource and and just this latest iteration. Adds a lot more layers about security, privacy, um, ownership, you know, thinking about. The extent that our decisions around technology kind of weave into so many other, either potential challenges we’re gonna face or or ways of how we’re gonna operate, you know. I admire that N10 is leaning into equity and not uh shrinking away from it, leaning in affirmatively with an update to your equity guide. All right. Well, because that’s part of it, we can certainly get into it, but as a word is it’s not tokenism. It is because we truly believe in equitable world is possible. If we didn’t, why are we here? Why are we doing this work if we don’t think. That beautiful world is possible, you know, and it wouldn’t be beautiful if it wasn’t for all of us. Right, and it’s trying to achieve, uh, something that we may never fully achieve, but the, the journey is Meritorious, valuable, important, worthy, all right. We’re gonna, we’re gonna get to, uh, I don’t know, I don’t, I don’t know if it’s a, I don’t know if it’s a prior restraint on speech, uh, uh, using with token words that you are not using as tokens. I understand that, but, uh, but we’re not, we’re not quite there. So I want to uh open with uh just continuing our conversation from December. We were together in December. We promised listeners we would come back together in February. Here we are. Most of our conversation in Feb in December was devoted to House Resolution HR 9495, which died in the 118th Congress. So now if it’s going to come back, uh, it would have to be uh reintroduced under a new title, but because 9495 died with the old Congress. But it’s certainly, that certainly could happen. Uh, Gene, you have some insights into what, uh, what we, what, what, what, and the, the potential for a reincarnation of the 9495 HR. Yeah, and, um, great to be here with both you and Amy. Uh, first of all, um, HR 9495 did die with the last Congress, but that’s because it passed so late in, in, in, in the congressional year. So, um, as we entered into the new Congress at the beginning of January, um, things have to be reintroduced under a different, uh, name and number. Burr and so we’ll, we’re likely to see this come back again because it passed the House, um, and it didn’t make it through the Senate, but it was not rejected by the Senate. They just didn’t have time to deal with it. The Senate was also uh had a majority of Democrats on uh uh in in their roster at that time, but with the change in Congress at the beginning of the year, now the Republicans control both the House and the Senate. And this vote on HR 9495 was, was very strongly on partisan lines. So if it got reintroduced, there’s a very possible chance um that it gets passed. So it’s something just to, to think about. Um, if that possibility still exists, and we can discuss pros, cons, and, and likelihood and all the rest, but I, I’ll let you tell us where to go, Tony. Well, let’s see, in terms of a new bill, let’s see what does develop. It feels likely to me that something will come. Uh, so when it does, I guess that’s pretty defeatist, but uh it’s what I believe. When it does come, you know, we’ll talk about the details of it because it could be changed from what it, what 94, 95 was, uh, there, there may be changes to it. Um, but also important for folks to know, Gene, that there are other methods through which The executive branch in particular can ah. Cause trouble for nonprofits uh based on uh the the funding activities whether you’re funding or even just talking about people who are perhaps under a terrorist supported organization or supported by a terrorist supported organization or once removed from these, there are some mechanisms that are already out there that exist right today. They don’t need to be passed anew. Yeah, so HR 9495 or whatever its progeny should should be if it’s similar, um, is not the most draconian of of laws, even though it created sort of panic within the sector. Um, there are existing laws on the book that give the executive branch a lot of discretion, uh, to really, um, either revoke 501c3 status from organizations that are. Deemed to support terrorist organizations um or even uh act uh against fundamental established public policy whatever that may be and with our executive branch well you know we we talk about kind of all of the things that are harming the nonprofit sector and all the communities that the nonprofit sector benefits, which is everyone, um. Uh, yes, the executive branch has a whole lot of power to do a lot worse even so this deluge of executive orders and memos and the like, you know, we, we, we’ll get into, but there are other laws out there that can even be exercised that are more tough. The danger with 94, 95 or whatever might come out of it is that it looks. Like it’s a little bit kinder with a little bit more due process than some of the really harsh laws. Now I’m free, I’m afraid that that could be a tool of use to, to be able to justify it and scare the sector by targeting a few organizations and then saying, hey, we’re going to do this to anybody that goes against us. Um, and that’s my general fear. And perhaps making it more palatable because it, it did include due process that uh that other existing regulations don’t include. So could you say though, as you were talking about, you know, I’m just, um, pretending that I’m a listener and not having access to the mic right now while you’re talking and You know, the way you were describing the laws that already exist, access to power that is already available, um, to the executive branch, you use the term terrorist organization. Can you, you know, I think a lot of nonprofits would be like, that’s not us, like we’re safe here, but can you talk a little bit about how that definition is, or how that term is defined and and used or misused? So there are probably dozens of laws that define terrorist organizations in different contexts. This is outside of the tax code, right? So this is. No one’s putting on their 990. Yes, I’m a terrorist. Um, but the fear, I think, and, and why 9495. arose in the legislature is, is, I think, because, not because they wanted another tool to stop terrorism or the support of terrorism. I, I think it arose because, um, there are members of Congress that really did not like that some people were supporting Palestinians in in Gaza and Um, the Palestinians were ruled by Hamas, which was designated a terrorist organization. So Hamas is a terrorist organization in, in our books and just a lot of things. Amy, just to your, your whimsical point, you, you, you could have a 990 that mentions support for Palestinians, right? Yeah, and so what is the algorithm that they’re going to use to say, hey, let’s take a closer look at this organization, throw a wrench in their operations, maybe have the right to take away their 501c3 status? What 9495 doesn’t do, which we mentioned in the last show, but I, I think it’s worth reiterating, is it does not stop you from operating. It just takes away your 501c3 status. So again, A less harsh tool than they already have in the books, um, but one that might be used because it looks better. And when we talked about due process, Tony, let’s put that in quotation marks because there are some outs from some of those due process protections as well, so. Save it for another show because again it could get redefined in the new bill. All right, all right, cool. Um, Amy, let’s go off with the guide. Uh, we’ve got, uh, we’ve got a chilling around a chilling hostility toward diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging. Uh, uh, all as, you know, illegal discrimination. I mean, if you get into the, if you get into the text of the, the one order anyway, the one executive order, uh, 14173 talks about ending illegal. Diversity, equity, inclusion, discrimination, uh, but, but that it’s not currently illegal, but I’m not sure that qualification really matters. It’s, it’s, it’s having a chilling effect on Websites, um, I don’t know if it’s going as deep as mission statements. Maybe it is, Amy, maybe you’re hearing some of that, uh, but I mean, I’m reading about websites being prophylactically scrubbed of language that the administration deems, uh, inappropriate and is hostile to. Uh, Amy, why don’t you share what you’re what you’re hearing from folks? Yeah, I think there is. Um, you know, if, if anyone ever watched, uh, Thomas the Tank Engine or read Thomas the Tank Engine, they say all the time, confusion and delay, that is what is happening. So much confusion and delay, right? It’s Ringo Starr, right? Ringo Starr the station manager, it’s it’s Ringo Starr saying that, isn’t it? Yeah. Um. That’s like the nice way to put it, of course, right? Like there’s already. Countless documented actual harms, deaths, delayed or stopped medical interventions. Like all of these things have come. I’m not trying to downplay it with Thomas the Tank Engine, but maybe make it light enough that we can keep having a conversation, um, because otherwise, like, the reality is super, super hard, and I don’t want to deny that. Um, I think we’re hearing from a lot of organizations who And N10 has had this conversation too, of how do we navigate. Keeping our staff and our either service recipients or program participants or, you know, beneficiaries of our mission, what whatever it is safe so that we can continue to do this work. Like we don’t want to stop the work that we do, but, but how do we stay safe enough that we’re employed to do it or that, you know, we are able to offer these programs and. Um, I welcome Jean’s insights, but I think that question is kind of a recurring theme with maybe answers that are different every day for organizations, right? Like they’re coming up with, OK, today, like things are a little different, this is what that’s gonna look like. We’re hearing from, you know, I think a lot of the websites or service providers that I’ve at least seen, not that I have a chronicle of the entire internet, um, despite what you may think, but the folks I’ve seen doing the most proactive scrubbing are folks. Either completely reliant or predominantly funded by the government. And so that is less about the language of of executive orders and much more about the actual felt pause or discontinuation of funding, you know, and, and wanting that piece to not be the barrier. And I think there’s a lot of arguments. That are super valid about not scrubbing that, you know, if you invisibilize community members, you are not serving them in those services, cause they don’t know that it’s safe to still get services from you, and maybe it isn’t safe to still get services from you. And because we are in a world, and we are complex humans, multiple things can be true at the same time. That is true and I want to create space to say that that is also a potential mechanism for keeping staff and patients safe so that they can continue to operate, right? So it’s both troubling and not helpful to invisibilize communities by erasing that language from your website, and also if that allows you to get funding so long as you’re still serving them, and they are safe and protected. You know, it, it is complex, um, but I think that’s the kind of scenario we’re hearing from organizations that they’re trying to balance. Where there isn’t a right answer, and, and also none of the answers maybe feel good, but they’re trying to, you know, what can you do on your website versus what could you do in your services, um. I think another place of real worry, and this goes back to conversations, um, Jean and I have had with you, Tony, about 94, 95, and, and other, uh, powers that many administrations have used to come for organizations, and that is the incredible data that we have been entrusted with as nonprofits, and that that Less of our mission or our services, or even honestly our staff, but just the database we have that says these are all the people who needed X, Y, and Z service, that’s, that’s the thing, um, that’s gonna have even more targeting, and so we’re also hearing from a lot of folks who Well, this is not a new practice for the federal government to come for your list and really want to know who’s accessing certain services or benefiting from certain missions. Because of the level of rhetoric around the White House right now, I think folks who have had the privilege to not be threatened by that in the past are now thinking about it, really, for the first time, right? And thinking, OK, what does it look like to Create our database where all of the demographic information for, say, participants in our programs is animized, and we are just never connecting that to individual records. What does it look like to, you know, what, what can we do? It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor Box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you, a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges. Helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs. Helping you, help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now back to Prudence in our political environment. Gene, you’re getting a lot of calls I know as well, folks just with generalized concerns or maybe more specific based on their work, but what, uh, what are you able to tell folks? How, how are you reassuring or, or maybe it’s not reassuring, but what are you sharing with folks? Yeah, I mean what Amy talked about in terms of the complexity and. Um, basically one size doesn’t or one solution doesn’t fit everybody’s, um, sort of needs. Um, I, I think one of the first things I talk about is if you’re going to make decisions on what you’re going to do, whether it be scrub your website or change your programs or change your mission or or whatever, or advocate and fight against, you know, uh, uh, what the government is doing. You wanna do that on an informed basis, so you wanna make sure that you are talking with your communities, your stakeholders, um, your board should definitely be involved um and assessing kind of the risks and the risk tolerances you might have, what you’re threatened with, um, uh, if things go bad, talking about sort of contingency planning. Uh, of, of, or scenario planning about what might happen if you were to go on this course and sort of mapping it all out and saying, OK, what is the best direction for our organization. So I think. Um, from a governance role, from the board role, that would sort of be my first step is get your board involved and make sure you’re hearing from them some pieces of information that you might not have and, and, and vice versa as well. Talk to your employees, talk to your beneficiaries, and we talked about, um, having, uh, uh, town town hall type meetings, um, you know, uh, that may be a good thing to start out with. In terms of being informed, there’s so much misinformation out there and and part of it is intentional coming from the government, right? Again, they want to scare the sector as a whole or the sector writ large into compliance with what their policy aims are, um, and this is extreme now but it it is kind of that’s how governments tend to operate, you know, generally speaking, and now we’re just at a very extreme level of how far they want to get into it. Um, so it is assessing now, um, you know, those executive orders definitely if you’re receiving federal funding that’s discretionary, right? They can fund who they want and so if they put parameters around that about if you say you have a DEI policy we’re not gonna fund you, that places an entirely different risk tolerance on organizations that rely on federal funding. Now for the organization that doesn’t get any federal funding. To to sort of follow what the organizations that get federal funding and scrub all the DEI off their website if DEI is a core value and part of their mission. That may not be the right thing to do there for all the reasons Amy said because you’re trying to fight for your community, including your, you know, your beneficiaries in the future and if you give up on all of this and if everybody gave up on all of this, um, your organization and its mission are gonna really suffer and your beneficiaries are gonna suffer and the ecosystem that you’re in your environments are gonna suffer and communities are gonna suffer so it really is just something to think about and so for those. Looking at the executive orders closely, you’ve said the term properly, Tony, the executive orders are going after illegal DEI and DEI isn’t. A a real thing that you can grab a hold of, right? It’s diversity, equity and inclusion. Well, the words aren’t illegal, so what would be illegal? Something illegal would be saying like we are only going to hire a BOC individual to be our executive director. We won’t look at anybody else. That is illegal. So if you use race to base a decision on employment, that is illegal, um. The the fearless fund issue that I think we have also talked about yeah that has to do with making and enforcing contracts based on race. So that would say be like I will only enter into a contract if you are white or if you are black or if you are an indigenous or Native American person. You can’t do that either, right? So you can’t make or enforce a contract based on race. Where this gets dicey now is if you say we wanna run a program to, you know, address uh historical and systemic discrimination against a particular race or or races. If you structure that as a contract, like if you say you can participate in our program, but in return you must do this. Hm. If you make it as a contract which would fearless fund had too much contractual language in there, which is why they settled, it would have been bad precedent for the sector. Now there are other arguments for why that law shouldn’t be applied in this way when it was originally created in the 1860s, by the way, it was to protect black people who were formerly enslaved, um, from being. You know, taken away from, from, uh, the right to enforce contracts because you weren’t white. Um, that is, you know, it’s even mentioned in the statute, and now it’s being flipped in the, you know, reverse discrimination. But Jean, the other side of that, that I wanted to bring up, I’m glad you brought up Fearless Fun. That was, that was one side. And the other side is, was it last week? Time is an accordion. I don’t, I don’t know, uh, when this happened. But I think it was last week I saw the Missouri AG. With the suit against Starbucks, saying that the the Starbucks workforce, which is probably like a million employees worldwide, but probably just looking at the US is majority. Not men and majority, not white. And so that means it’s like it’s a proof of illegal DEI hiring or something. But as soon as I said that, my first thought, and Jean, tell tell me if I should stand down on my anxiety spirals of everything, um. But my first thought was, OK, well, like, let’s take a quick gander at the nonprofit sectors, demographics. Guess what are also majority, not men, major, you know, like, of course, because they’re is it that’s just the, oh my God, OK, yeah, because diversity is a value and because we’re, we’re basing our decisions that I’m gonna say like 98.5% of them on, on. Uh, the content of your character and your credentials, whether formal or informal for the job and not and not the color of your skin and your race. All right, so let’s, but yeah, Gene, Amy’s Amy’s pleading. Yeah, so the way it read in the media, at least the media I read, it’s a ridiculous lawsuit in Missouri. Um, I don’t know if there’s something deeper into that, that the news media didn’t pick up, but, um, and, and you can see I’m, I’m CYA because I’m a lawyer, um. Uh, but yeah, that seems ridiculous, but it does raise actually a great point of state laws can even be worse than federal laws, um, so, uh, you know, um, depending upon what state you’re in, I’m in California, so our, our laws are pretty. You know, OK, relative to the federal laws in terms of how hostile or friendly they are to nonprofits, but there are other states where that may not be true and Miss Missouri might be an example of where there are, you know, state laws that can be used as a basis for attacking a nonprofit, but this is to say that if I were to go into any nonprofit organization and you left me with a few hours to look at their books, I could probably find some sort of violation there. Um, cleaning up compliance on general things like making sure you’re registered with the state, um, and if you’re in multiple states, like figuring out which ones you need to register in, because that is a really easy way to close you down without there being any fuss. You just didn’t meet the requirements and boom. You have a whole, you have an article on this. We’re gonna let’s let’s talk about it in nonprofit quarterly. Uh, yeah, it’s so it’s right, if they want to, if they want to find something. You’re right, Gene, probably 2 hours, 2 hours with any person’s, uh, tax, tax history would probably incriminate them and, and subject them to, to sanction for, for no for noncompliance. So, I, uh, I wanna preface just with your so folks can find the article, it’s in nonprofit Quarterly. Gene wrote it, so you’re looking for the byline by Gene Takagi, it was January 20th, 2025. Nonprofit legal compliance in an unfriendly political environment you find that in nonprofit quarterly. Gene, let’s tick off some of the things that could easily, uh, be much more, well, I don’t know, much more troublesome, could easily be troublesome irrespective of what your mission is, what your website says, what values you hold deeply, just, uh, fundamental compliance things that And housekeeping that may not have been paid as much attention to as they should be, and now they ought to be. Yeah, so you know some of the fundamental things are just making sure you’re qualified to do business in a particular state. So if you’re incorporated in New York, that doesn’t give you the right to operate in Texas or in California, right? So a lot of people talk about registration, which is sort of in your sort of corner of the world too, Tony, make sure your solicitations are registered in all the states where you’re soliciting. But qualification to do business is not specific to charities. It’s to for-profits, it’s to nonprofits who aren’t charities, um, and it’s a different filing. You have to do both. Like, so if you have boots on the ground or you have programs in another state, um. As long as for lawyers out there you meet minimum contacts, uh, requirements and you have to be qualified to do business there and that may be a filing with the Secretary of State or someone other than the charities regulator. So the charities regulation stuff is above and beyond that you could get shut down for either missing either filing so. To to be aware of that now if it’s not your state of incorporation um they can only shut you down in your activities in that particular state, but as Amy knows with our technology now how do you do that? Like if you have members and donors and. In some state, how do you shut off one and not the other and now when we use charitable fundraising platforms like PayPal and stuff, they say, hey, if you are noncompliant in any state, we’re shutting you all down because we don’t want to get in trouble either. So now that wipes off all of your online fundraising through that platform, um, which can really harm organizations. So that is a big one, so qualifications as well as registrations. Gene, let’s talk about, uh, even more fundamental, uh, adhering to your mission, adhering to your, uh, your originating documents, your articles of incorporation, your bylaws, are you running the organization the way your bylaws say? Uh, all right, so I ticked off a couple, you’re bored. The duties of care and loyalty or as your, so I’m, I’m glossing over because I’m not the practicing attorney that Gene is, so, but. Uh, I’m not qualified to go any deeper. I’m a good, you know, like I’m a good surface scratcher. That, that’s just no, uh, in, in a lot of things that’s true, but, uh, Gene, please help me, get me out of this morass that I just, uh, got myself into. Uh, some of the, the more basic things about your, your work and your originating documents that you need to be adhering to. Yeah, so articles and bylaws really important because a lot of organizations have really old articles and bylaws that they haven’t been looking at. Their mission statements or their practices may have now changed from what the bylaws or the articles originally contemplated. That could be a reason for shutting you down or for removing your board members and having it replaced maybe by a receiver um who sides with whatever the state priorities are so you could find your organization and it’s control who controls that organization changed because you’re not compliant. So again, an easy way to say. We’re gonna shut you down not because of your policies. We don’t have to go there. We’re gonna shut you down for you didn’t follow your articles and bylaws. Your articles say you only operate in, you know, ABC County, but now you’re in EFG County as well, like you’re, you’re operating. Against the law, we’re shutting you down. Um, so be very, very careful. I know, again, some states would not even think of that, like would not think to do that. But other states may not. Well, Jean, I’ve been on boards of other organizations where, because those are quite important documents, there’s this preciousness to the bylaws that they can’t be touched. And You know, the response I got when I said, well, we can just take a vote and change our bylaws was like blasphemy, right? You can amend your you can amend your bylaws, just follow the bylaws in the bylaws, right? Is that right? Right. But I mean, you know, as a nonprofit, for example, Every 2 years, we are making sure, is this document reflective of how we want to be operating, right? And, and really looking through it. So I don’t know, Gene, if you wanna say something that like to Tony’s point comes from you and not from me, uh, but yes, like, go change your bylaws. Don’t just hear the feedback of like, make sure you’re in compliance, but also update them, make them something you want to be in compliance with. I love that Amy um and the regular, you know, schedule that that antenna is looking at. I do, I, I, I am concerned with a lot of nonprofits can’t really afford a lot of legal help, a lot of pro bono help doesn’t understand this area very well. The bylaws can seem a little overwhelming to boards who don’t understand all that legalese in there. Right. Um, so I’m, am a little cognizant of that. There are certain areas though where you should just look and you can tell, are we in compliance or not? How often are we meeting? How many board members do we have? Are we really having elections as they are supposed to happen and not just letting board members stay on because we like them, um, and you don’t need a lawyer if I mean you could. I would advocate that you still have a lawyer look at it, but if the only thing in your bylaws you were changing was our board is Whatever, 7 to 12 members, and now you realize you really want more board members and you’re changing it from 12 to 20. You’re not changing the terms, you’re not changing anything else. Just change those two numbers. Take a vote formally at your next board meeting and like, great, now you have updated. You know, I don’t want folks to feel like You’re not smart enough or you’re not qualified to review those and and want to make changes. Yeah, I hate to be sort of the proponent of something I heard Elon Musk who, who has all of your individual tax records as I was thinking when you mentioned that, Tony. Um, but, um, you don’t want perfect to be sort of the, the enemy of good here. Yeah, so you just have to be very, very careful of that. And, and as a side note, Elon said that about saying we’re spending $50 million of USAID money on condoms for Hamas, um, so. And then he said that quote is not generally attributed to him, like certainly been around, yeah, just like all right let me get out of the morass that the rabbit hole you just entered. um, all right, so now, Amy, you do make a very good point. The, the, the, the point that we’re all making is just be consistent. Your, your documents and your true operations need to be the same. So if the bylaws are out of date, work on amending. You don’t have to change the way you’re operating, just get the bylaws up to date with, you know, now you’re meeting 4 times a year instead of the 3 times a year that your bylaws say. All right. Well, and just can I make a technology point about that consistency too, um, this came up last week when I was presenting at the Alabama State Association um um state nonprofit association summit and talking about data and policies in a place where there’s not that consistency between maybe privacy policy you have and how staff manage the database or, or, you know, data from programs um place whatever the scenario is, and really Uh, inviting listeners to put on the calendar a good hour in tomorrow or in an upcoming day, to look at all the data that you’re collecting and say, do we need to collect all of this? It’s a lot of work to protect your data, and it is less work if you have less data, right? And so, if you’re never, if you’re never gonna Need uh one of those fields, or you know that you’re really only looking at, say, for our conversation here, demographic data. For the whole year, once a year, you can either stop collecting things or collect it differently or store it differently, that already sets you up to make it safer and and more protected. And so thinking about not just do we have a privacy policy, do we have a data retention policy? Like, please make sure you have those types of things and and that you’re practicing them, but also looking at those, just like you. Bylaws and saying, gosh, this privacy policy was written when we were formed in 2005, and like, is irrelevant to us now. We need to update these policies. And with that, we need to update our, our practices, um, and how we actually operate, um, because there is a lot that would be. At stake, um, if, if your data was compromised or subpoenaed or whatever, and so even these kind of practical pieces help that. I, I, I agree 100%. And just as an example, like if you, the lawyer signs off on what I said, I feel like I did it right, you know. Uh, if ICE, you know, comes and visits your nonprofit organization and demands sort of records of individuals who benefited from your organization’s services and you know, you have data going back years that you have no need to keep, and all of a sudden you’re turning all of that over. Um, think what harm that could be doing to your communities. It doesn’t matter whether they actually end up, you know, having anybody that’s relevant to ICE, but they could just terrorize the people that you’re trying to serve. And I think, you know, a common, when I’ve brought up an example like that, or, you know, Maybe you do pro bono legal clinics and you have this whole many years record of who’s come to those clinics. You probably don’t need that, but I, I hear the. The pushback or the question from a lot of different nonprofit staff saying, yeah, but like, how, we don’t want to delete that. We wanna know, OK, in 2010 we had 100 people, but then by 2014, we were serving 500 people. Great. You don’t need to know that it was Jean Takagi at this address in California that was one of those 100. You just need to know that there were 100, right? Or maybe you want to know that. It was client A who lived in California versus client B who lived in Colorado. Great. But, but again, you, you don’t need all of that data probably. And the more that you can get rid of, or not even collect in the first place, helps in the situation Gene’s talking about when someone comes in and says, hand it over, what are you really having to hand over then, you know, OK, well, here’s a list of counties, Godspeed to you, you know. It’s time for Tony’s take 2. Thank you, Kate. I co-host a. Nonprofit activist group. We are the nascent nonprofit activist group. We met once in December, we met again in February. We’re gonna try to keep up a meeting a month. Um, there’s about 40 people or so who joined the meetings, about 65 on our email list. And we’re talking about the issues that Gene and Amy and I are talking about on today’s show. So if you’d like to be be more activist than than just listening and, and dealing with this on your own, uh, we’re, we’re supportive, you know, there’s a lot of cross talk, it’s not, it’s not all 11 directional talk. Uh, we are helping each other and we are gonna be, after these two meetings now, we’ve had sort of informational, we had a guest speaker who I’m probably gonna have on the show in the, in the next few weeks, um. And so if you would like to be part of our supportive activist group, it’s very easy. Just email me, Tony at Tony Martignetti.com. I, I need your, just, I need your name and email. And uh you can also use uh the contact page at Tony Martignetti.com. I’m co-hosting this group with Beth Kanter and Jay Frost. They have both been on the show multiple times. You may know them in their own work as well. So the three of us are co-hosting this the the nascent nonprofit activist group. Please join us if uh you think that uh we can help you and if you have something to contribute to the group. That is Tony’s take too. Kate, I don’t have much to add this time other than I think it’s really cool to see these um conversations popping up um with, you know, the new administration and All the change that’s going on and the uncertainty, um, I mean, even in classes, we’re actually sitting down, putting aside the curriculum for a second, but in our education course we’re having these conversations in class, trying not to keep it political, but I think having that conversation is so important. It is, it’s so supportive, so that you know, you know, in your class, you know that you’re not the only one having concerns. I mean, you’re in an education curriculum and the Department of Education is at risk. That, that, uh, that can be very troublesome. The Department of Education sets standards, spends billions of dollars on public education. Etc. So yes, just in terms of support, knowing you’re not the only one with concerns, and then also this activist group is, you know, we’re, we’re activists, so we’re not just gonna support each other as important as that work is, we’re gonna start taking some actions. I don’t know if it’s gonna be calls or letter writing or emails or what we’re gonna do. We don’t know yet, but. It’s, it’s important to not only support each other, but also take action. Well, we’ve got booku but loads more time. Here’s the rest of Prudence in our Political Environment with Gene Diagi and Amy Sample Ward. Let’s go a little more uh focused to our colleagues who do uh foreign aid, uh, foreign development, uh, international development work. Uh, affected by the USAID freeze, um, there’s also an OMB freeze. These are in different states of litigation. There are, there are orders issued by judges against these freezes, but the orders don’t seem to be. Uh, being followed by the administration, or we’re not sure. Gene, what, what are you hearing like specifically from the, the uh Community development, you know, foreign, foreign aid work. What was really harsh, right? And so I think I estimated, um, over 50,000 US jobs lost, uh, over 100,000 worldwide jobs lost because of, uh, of some of the, the freezes and cuts. Um, understandably, there, you know, existing contracts that nonprofits had agreed to in the past, um, for which they’ve delivered services and not gotten paid. Yet, um, but it’s through, through grant programs where the funding has stopped. So, um, you know, it’s really, really a harsh time now where organizations are laying off people, they’re cutting off programs, um, and they’re really scrambling to find out how are they going to keep, you know, advancing. Um, their, their mission where they are largely dependent upon federal funding and federal funding is is perhaps, uh, one of the largest sources of funds for the charitable sector, right? Um, it’s not foundation funding, it’s, it’s much, much larger than foundation funding, so it really is important to understand that philanthropy can do a little bit and they should probably do more, but they, they don’t have the capacity to fill the gap that the federal funding has, so, um. Uh, USAID, you know, especially. I think there’s just a lack of knowledge from people to understand well what USAID is. It’s not just giving money away to foreign countries. Um, there are like national interests, security interests, disease prevention, prevention of wars, there’s a lot that Um, reasons why USAID was formed and why we want to have good foreign relations and we, it’s not just, which I’ve heard a lot of folks feel like USAID is like a health, um it’s, you know, right. So yeah, that’s, I mean, that is sort of the, the big problem now and, and when you have somebody um who’s almost acting as an, as an executive in, in Elon Musk again, just to point him out again, announcing the intention to shut down USAID despite the court orders so. Um, you know, the apart from all of the, the funding cutbacks and, and the job losses, are they gonna really kill USAID? Are they gonna kill the Department of Education? like, are, what happens when we lose these things? How easy will they be to replace, um, and, um, what are we gonna do, um, without this? It’s, there’s gonna be a lot of suffering, so it’s organizations are gonna have to figure out, well, in this environment, what are we going to do. Mhm. You know there’s programs being cut. Uh, you know, people abroad sent home or, or there’s no funds to send them home. You know, we’ve, we’ve seen the stories. I think it’s, yeah, I was just gonna add to Jean’s point, um. And I don’t hear you saying this, you know, without any support, but I think As a nonprofit, you know, representative here, when I hear, OK, nonprofits are gonna have to like Try to figure out what do we do in this climate. It’s not a 1 to 1. Many organizations can’t just say we’re gonna fill this hole that that is presented by USAID being forced to, to stop, because we don’t have, to your earlier point, Jean. Contracts in place that say we then get to be the vaccine recipients, or we get to be the arbiters of grain. Like we those organizations don’t have in place the administrivia that allows us to then step in, which is really, just as we were saying that could be used against us as nonprofits if we don’t, you know, have our stuff in order. The the dismantling or even temporary pauses of components of our government is actually in the whole network of contracts and relationships, and, you know, collaborative agreements, and so, I think Nonprofits do, of course, have to think about what do we do now because of this, but we can’t. Maybe fool ourselves into thinking, oh yeah, we’ll just like step in and be them because we can’t replace all all of those agreements or contracts or or relationships. We’re actually thinking more about what do we do with the fallout because of this, and not how do we become the replacement of this, you know. Just to like maybe make it sound worse, I guess, is my point, but. Hey, when you mentioned grain too, um, Amy, I was thinking about the US farmers that are losing, um. I think 10s, maybe even hundreds of millions of dollars of of um purchases from the US government to feed other countries or to deliver that food out that will hurt our agricultural economy here as well. So, you know, even for the administration, um. You know, it’s supporters who, who were met many from rural areas and farming communities are, you know, getting screwed, maybe not directly but indirectly through these things as well. And, and there just has to be a bigger understanding, uh, which is a domino, right? That means more people in that community needing the support services that other nonprofits were already providing to folks, you know, um. And it’s in, I know it’s so different, but I do keep finding myself coming back to a lot of the hard feelings of 2020 when it’s like, Oh my gosh. Organizations across the sector were already operating at maximum, and like, you know, quote unquote, now more than ever, our missions are needed. And and here we are again at this place where, oh my gosh, it’s How, how do we serve more people? How do we can make sure we still have staff to do that because the need. Continues to have this exponential growth, um, feeling, if not actual, um, you know, number. There’s also a national security dimension to this, that, that we’ve, we’ve promised to deliver whatever type of aid, whether it’s, uh, I mentioned, you know, helping build your democracy in Romania, or whether it’s feeding in the African nations or healthcare, you know, we’ve made these commitments and now we’re just literally just walking away. We can no longer do what we were doing two weeks ago. So you’re on your own, uh, the US has screwed you. So there’s that, there’s just our perception in the world, how we’re perceived in the world, and Uh, who’s gonna fill that void? I think, I think some of our, uh, some of our deepest adversaries like China and, you know, China specifically, particularly because of their wealth and and reach, but there’s also a possibility of some terrorist organizations filling a gap on a, on a small, much smaller scale. Especially when you promised people who were helping you fight terrorism that you would allow them to bring themselves and their families into the country after they, they delivered that help and then now breaching that promise and saying no, you can’t come in here anymore. It’s heinous. It’s, it’s, it’s cruel. Yeah. Alright, we gotta take a, we gotta take a turn, uh, to media. Uh, Amy, you have some thoughts about, uh, you know, when I, when I suggested the topic of major media capitulation, even before the election, the Washington Post refusing to endorse any candidate, uh, the Los Angeles Times, same, USA Today, same. And then since the election, um, CNN settling a very questionable lawsuit for $10 billion. Uh, based on what, uh, what, what words, uh, George Stephanopoulos used, um, and it looking potentially like CBS may settle something also very, very questionable about the way they edited a teaser. Yeah, versus the fuller interview if you watch the show, I mean, you know, commercials are made to be short and and video is edited for commercial for short purposes and but the likelihood that CBS may settle that. Uh, so I, I hear, Major media are already part of the corporate industrial complex and so. Well, I would love for them to do better and be better. Am I surprised? No. What I feel is a really important Um, Happening that we should care about even more so than like those completely disappointing, but maybe anticipated, you know, choices, um. When other journalists have not stood with the AP and the AP has been blocked from briefings, that is the backbone of getting reliable direct information from our federal government out to people, right? Um. And all of that because the AP said the established name of this waterway. Yes, the Gulf of Gulf of America, so they were, they were banned from a White House event. This is why I believe what you’re getting to in the media, in the nonprofit community, we all have to support all of our sectors, all of our missions, all of our work, so that when it’s not a race, right? There’s not one. There’s not one trophy. So, if we do not stand together as nonprofits or as journalists, you know, we all will lose. It, I mean, I think Gan made this point earlier, right? Like nonprofits benefit everyone. Good journalism benefits everyone. We, we need. We need sunlight on that information, and we need it to be, this is directly what was said, right? Which is um what the AP is providing and is especially providing news, information, access to under-resourced communities where they do not have their own journalists, they do not have their own media bodies, and so they are just receiving literally that AP wire and reporting what’s happening. Um, and so if we let that crumble, again, just as, as other nonprofits, if we start saying, OK, well, I don’t know what a good. Example would be here, but like I know in a lot of especially smaller or distributed kind of rural communities, United Ways are often the organizations who are the only ones with the capacity to do kind of data aggregation on any regular schedule, right? and say this is the state of social services in our tri-county area for the, you know, and then so many nonprofits don’t have the capacity to do their own. Field research, and so they write grant applications using the United Way’s data. It’s, it’s very similar to in my mind, I think. And if we Don’t stay standing together, we all will lose. Um, and so I think it’s just really, um, a beacon to me right now of that, OK, well I don’t support that, that can, that is not. Giving me any good signs about the state of Journalism or or reporting and information uh in our system, as nonprofits, we cannot replicate that. If, if, if we are not gonna stay together, like all of the pieces, all of the components um can’t, can’t be successful, you know. We can also be sources of information, reliable data to the extent that we can, even if it’s within our own local community, at least we can, we, we can be reliable, we can footnote, we can provide information about it may and it may just be about our work, but we can be we can be reliable sources and, and of course there are some nonprofit, uh, journalism outlets, but you know, that’s a very small percentage of the. 1.5 million or 1 to 1.8 million depending whether you count foundations or not, nonprofits in the US. So, But each of us can be scrupulous about our own, our own data reporting. Mhm. Yeah, I think it’s so important now as well because we don’t all just collect news from our major, major media sources, right? Um, a lot of us relied on Twitter before, for example, um, a lot of us relied on just television shows, um, like the Daily, um, so it’s, it’s about understanding how things that we thought. We’re gonna be more transparent and put more sun like like Twitter led to the Arab Spring or helped, you know, facilitate the Arab Spring that has rapidly changed, right? Twitter is completely different now, um, and looking for, um, supporting those. News media, social media that are more aligned with how we think in terms of being fair and I, I should just sort of also say that the nonprofit sector is as diverse as the for-profit sector and that the federalist society is the nonprofit sector right part so um whether we just say the nonprofit sector as a whole needs to do something we are divided in our sector as well as to what we believe. Um, is fair and what we believe is true, um, but I do think there’s just more commonalities than partisan big corporation and billionaires tell us, um, what our commonalities are. I think we have much more in common with what we want, um, but the media that’s being controlled by the, the industrial complex is telling us something different. Mhm. Amy, you want to leave us with uh with your final thoughts for a minute or two and then we’ll uh I’ll turn to Gene and uh we’ll close. I think my only final thoughts from our conversation today are 12 things. It is very hard, so, you know, if you haven’t had a good cry yet today, this is your moment, like, I see you. It’s really fucking hard. And you’re not alone, right? Like there, not that you N0 would answer all of your questions, but there are so many intermediary organizations, whether that’s a state nonprofit association, um, you know, organizations like N10 that are on a specific topic like technology, but there’s so many resourcing organizations. That exist. To enable you to not figure all this out by yourself. And don’t fall into the trap that I think is, is very clearly laid for all of us to think we are in it alone because then we’re not resourced, we’re not supported, we don’t have a lot of faith in ourselves, right? And then we don’t maybe grow some power. So don’t fall into that trap. Don’t think that you are alone. Find whatever resourcing organization or, you know, collaborative or coalition or whatever you want. But don’t try to have all the answers yourself because like we’re all broken humans that definitely don’t know what all the answers are. So know that it is super hard, but you’re not alone, and we’ll figure it out. Tony will answer your questions. Um, and Tony is one of those resourcing, um, people or hubs, but that’s that’s, I think, all I can say to wrap it up. All right, well, Gene, before we turn to you, uh, I, I already know what I’m gonna say on Tony’s take two for this show, which is gonna be uh uh an infomercial for the nascent nonprofit activist group that, uh, you are, you are, you both joined us for the first meeting, uh, we’ve only had one other meeting since and uh if folks want to join us there, they will have by now already heard my, uh, My explanation of what we’re doing and how to join us on uh Tony’s Take two. So that, that’s my parting and, and you are not alone and there is, uh, I can recommend a group because I’m co-hosting it that uh will prove to you that we’re in this together. Jane I, I echo everything both of you have said about collaboration. Now is the time to join those who have similar values, um, who value your mission, um, talk to your funders, uh, as well, um, get them aligned with what the stories are, uh, of, of what. Problems you may be going through and what solutions you might have to to suggest um keep your boards engaged, keep your staff and beneficiaries engaged so you you’re acting together and be really informed um as as you go through this. This is a period. Um, and things are constantly changing, so just sort of to to know your adaptability, um, value that and make sure that you are allocating risk as well as your resources. So when you’re, when you have talk about risk tolerances, you’ve got to decide where you’re gonna sort of be more risk tolerant and where you’re going to be more risk averse and on the simple compliance stuff, be risk averse, like make sure you’re compliant. Gene Takagi, you, you want legal assistance, legal advice. A legal resource, uh, in our, in our time. Follow nonprofitlawblog.com. You’ll find Gene at GTech. Amy Sample Ward, you’ll find them on Blue Sky as Amy Sample Ward. Thank you very much, Gene. Thank you very much, Amy. Thanks, Tony. Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Amy. Bye. Bye. Next week, Julia Campbell returns for a social media chat. If you missed any part of this week’s show. I do beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. DonorBox, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, Donorbox.org. I love that alliteration. I knew it. I knew you were gonna come. I thought maybe you would say, no, he’s not gonna do it again this week. No, I knew it. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.
