By: Kat Alcaraz-Minnick

The 2018 documentary movie, Dark Money, ironically shed much light on the subject of corporate money being funneled into 501(c)(4) (social welfare) and 501(c)(6) (association) nonprofit organizations to elevate candidates who would in turn support corporation agendas. Between 2010 and 2016, over $800 million in dark money was spent in federal elections alone according to Ciara Torres-Spelliscy’s 2017 article, Dark Money as a Political Sovereignty Problem.

Dark money is the process of an individual, corporation, or foreign entity funding a political actions committee (PAC) that is veiled as a nonprofit 501(c)(4) or a 501(c)(6) tax-exempt lobbying organization to support a particular candidate. This PAC will then use the funding without disclosing its donors to run a smear campaign against opposing candidates by bombarding relevant communities with postcards, issue advertisements, robo calls.  Once the candidate gains support and wins the office, this candidate will then turn and support the agenda of the individual, corporation, or foreign entity. This is a dangerous cycle that hands over control of the government to the corporations, wealthy individuals, and possible foreign entities; the people no longer control the government as the forefathers established in the United States Constitution.  Instead, the candidate pushes a directed agenda through the legislative platform to create policies and help pass laws that will benefit the very entity or individual that funded the efforts to place the candidate in office.  This is why we the people are shell-shocked when certain election outcomes from the federal level down to the local level reflect extreme ideals.

Last fall, Peter Overby with NPR wrote an article about the Supreme Court ruling that closed a 40 year-old Federal Election Committee (FEC) loophole.  Overby wrote, “the ruling closes, at least for now, a loophole that has allowed wealthy donors to finance aggressive ads while staying anonymous. Crafted by the Federal Election Commission nearly 40 years ago, the loophole flourished after the 2010 Citizens United ruling.”

There is much movement in Washington D.C. regarding donor transparency with respect to nonprofit groups buying ads or attacking political candidates. In the matter of The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, et al, v. Federal Election Commission and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, the ethical question hanging in the air is whether nonprofits involved in election campaigning should disclose the donors funding dark money. I think they should and the Supreme Court agrees with the Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who struck down a FEC regulation on anonymous gifts to “dark money” groups (Overby, August 6, 2018).  I believe that the constitutional rights of the people should be preserved. The government is for the people, by the people; not for wealthy individuals, corporations, and especially not foreign entities. Unfortunately, as with most legal holdings, loopholes will abound. The 2018 ruling has a narrow application stating, “donors giving more than $200 to nonprofits “for the purpose of furthering an “independent expenditure” have to be disclosed to the FEC.”  Now, this means that nonprofits in the election game and dealing with dark money can control the categorization of donor funds. Who is watching? A wink here and a nod there from a corporation donating to a familiar nonprofit political action committee and it is business as usual.

What I find incredibly frustrating is that the nonprofit sector is being used for the market’s pleasure.  The tax-exemption status of the 501(c)(4) allows campaigning and lobbying for social issues. Civic leagues and social welfare organizations are exempt under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. Social welfare organizations generally fall into one of the following categories:

• Organizations that may be performing some type of public or community benefit but whose principal feature is lack of private benefit or profit;
• Organizations that would qualify for exemption under section 501(c)(3) but for a defect in their organizing documents or if they were not “action organizations”; and
• Nonprofit organizations that traditionally have been labeled in common parlance as social welfare organizations.

The IRS code states, “The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. However, a section 501(c)(4) social welfare organization may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity.” Dark money activity goes beyond pushing the envelope with respect to the IRS code; it rips the envelope.  The idea that social welfare and trade association nonprofit organizations are used to manipulate and influence local, state, and federal government upsets the nonprofit institute as an economic sector. The purpose of dark money is to conceal donors who fund PACs to directly change the course of the political arena. Transparency, accountability, and disclosure will help to place the control of government back in the hands of the people.

    Sound bite of NPR’ article regarding Supreme   Court holding for donor disclosure prior to 2018 midterm elections.

3-minute interview with Kimberly Reed, director of Dark Money

By: Sam Tongo

The months after the 2016 presidential election were a very difficult for me to comprehend. I watched countless stories about social groups and communities having their rights violated, and I progressively became angry. Angry enough to learn more about the issues, angry enough to talk to my personal circles about it, angry enough to take action.

That’s when I decided to team up with friends who felt the same way, and created a grassroots advocacy group called LEADAC, standing for LEadership, ADvocacy and ACtivism. The past two years since then have been amazing in terms of developing awareness. We’ve had the honor of raising $6,000 for the aid of Syrian refugees, hosting a “Drink & Discuss” event for community members to have a safe space to discuss the Charlottesville protest, and creating a human rights class curriculum for our alma mater, amongst many more initiatives.

We are now, however, finding it difficult to push beyond just spreading awareness of certain issues via social media and events. We want to create real change at a larger scale. We’re wondering, “Why does it seem so difficult to think of actionable ideas that will work?” My first thought is because we are just a small, young grassroots advocacy group that still has a lot to learn. Yes – that’s true, but I recently read an Stanford Social Innovation Review article titled “Stop Raising Awareness Already” which argues that nonprofits should become more strategic and clear with its messages. I now have a better idea on how to move forward.

The article suggests that the gap between educating and encouraging people to act is wide due to a lack of structure when communicating call-to-action messages to the public. The main arguments are that: 1) awareness does not guarantee people changing the way they feel, think or act on an issue, and 2) an awareness campaign can lead to four risks such as leading to no action, reaching the wrong audience, creating harm, or generating backlash. This communication model is called the “information deficit model,” which is the concept that if you throw more facts at people, they’ll eventually come around on an issue. Although the case study was geared towards the scientific community, this model also applies to the nonprofit sector. An article titled “Facts versus feelings isn’t the way to think about communicating science” agrees with the earlier mentioned Stanford Social Innovation Review article on how awareness campaigns which use the “information deficit model” across multiple fields are most likely “incomplete” and “over-simplistic” in achieving its goals for public action. The common and natural instinct to make sure that many people are aware of the cause you care about is noble, but what next?

The article lists four essential elements to creating a successful public interest communications campaign:

1. Target your audience as narrowly as possible
2. Create compelling messages with clear calls to action
3. Develop a theory of change (methodology or road map for how you will achieve change that includes objectives, tactics, and evaluation)
4. Use the right messenger

There have been many organizations that attempted to evoke public action through awareness campaigns. However, former First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” and the Center for Disease Control & Prevention’s “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse,” awareness campaigns stood out to me as specific examples of success and failure, respectively.

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The CDC’s objective with this campaign was to encourage more people to create preparedness kits in case of an emergency. Although the campaign became viral and included a clear call-to-action, Dr. Julia Fraustino’s case study on the initiative concluded that its humor distracted people away from the call-to-action due to them taking the issue less seriously. Despite its success in gaining popularity, the campaign failed in terms of getting more people to act on disaster-preparedness. I personally remember when this campaign launched in 2011, and I thought it was very clever of them to ride the “zombie trend” for more public awareness; however, I simply brushed it off and continued with my life instead of acting on the CDC’s message. I think the essential element the CDC failed to integrate in its campaign was “creating compelling messages with clear calls to action” due to the organization not prompting the public to take the issue more seriously.

The “Let’s Move” campaign, which launched in 2012, was an example of an awareness campaign that actually led to action and results. Obama’s strategy of researching the underlying causes of child obesity and referring to social science when communicating health issues enabled her to effectively encourage the public to live a healthier lifestyle in multiple ways. In terms of the essential elements to creating a successful public interest communications campaign:

1. Target your audience as narrowly as possible (schools)
2. Create compelling messages with clear calls to action (“drink more water” instead of “stop drinking soda”)
3. Develop a theory of change (replace meal plans with healthy meals at schools)
4. Use the right messenger (First Lady leading the initiative)

This article theorized that the reason her campaign succeeded was because “a clear and compelling call to action [was] delivered in an appealing way to a carefully considered target audience.” Strategic communication at this scale also helped prevent a waste of resources alongside providing solutions to social problems.

During a Global Studies lecture, a wise professor told us that “this moment in time will be written in history books and people will ask you about it – what do you want to say you’ve done?” Nonprofit organizations and grassroots advocacy groups like mine have the opportunity to make a lasting impact on many different causes, but won’t mean anything if nothing happens. We can’t do this alone, and the public is just waiting for someone to push them to act. Strategic communication is the key to public action, and should be adopted by all nonprofit organizations so they can achieve their missions.

By: Kelly Cousins

Presently Family Support Services is preparing for our annual Fundraiser Gala. As with every year, this involves soliciting new ideas from, staff, Board of Directors, etc. This year, a recurring suggestion is the idea of swag bags; goodies that guests can take away with them to keep Family Support Services in mind long after they have left the event. I have worked at many nonprofits that sell or give away merchandise to fundraise for and promote their mission, and so this idea at first seemed like a perfect addition to the Family Support Services event. However, upon further reflection, it has become clear that nonprofit swag is an arena fraught with ethical dilemmas.

As recently as January of 2019, the world saw the power of swag to undermine a nonprofit’s mission in a matter of days. The article “Charitable Swag and Mission Violations: The Spice Girls, Comic Relief, and a Factory in Bangladesh” highlighted the scandal when U.K. based charity Comic Relief, which strives to “create a just world, free from poverty”, was caught in the crosshairs when T-shirts being sold at a Spice Girls Benefit Concert to fundraise for Comic Relief and gender equality were found to be produced in a Bangladesh factory in which women were being overworked, underpaid, and often abused. This scandal rocked the Spice Girls, Comic Relief, and the nonprofit sector in general by making it clear how easy it is for nonprofits to fall into unethical traps.

Swag is generally considered to be a great promotional and fundraising tool. Articles like Notes on the Importance of “Swag” from Obama and Romney, and Keep Donors Coming Back with Memorable Swag Bags imply that having some type of branded swag is not only a good way to promote your agency, but also a great way to thank volunteers and donors. Most nonprofits exist to address some type of inequality. Whether that is inequality related to race, gender, economic status, education, sexuality, food, etc., they are all united in their desire to do good in the world. Paying $5.00 for a tote bag that you can then sell for $15.00 sounds like an ideal fundraiser, but it is important to look deeper at the issue. If the workers making those tote bags are making only $1.00 a day to make these totes, and are unable to provide for themselves and their families, does that violate your organizational mission? Is it worth the savings?

Nonprofits have a responsibility to be doing the research to ensure that they are using only ethically sourced material in their swag. Most nonprofits cannot hire a watchdog agency or a private detective to track down detailed information on all of the organizations they buy from, so much of this research falls into the lap of already overworked nonprofit staff. This can seem a daunting task, but it is undeniably necessary, and there are some tools that already exist to help in this search. First, and most common, is looking for labels like Fair Trade Certified, or Global Organic Textile Standards. These labels demonstrate that the product, whether it is bananas or tote bags, complies with the ethical standards of these certifying entities. Another slightly more difficult step is to research the companies that you intend to buy from. Specifically, go in search of these companies’ internal “Code of Conduct” or “Code of Ethics”. These codes are sometimes easy to find, and other times buried deep in the website, but most companies have them publicly available. It is worth the time to poke around, and be sure when you find the code to read the fine print. This is where you can find information about the companies’ ethical values. A final valuable step is to gauge the company’s transparency. Are they clear about where they source material, or is this information nearly impossible to find? This is a good indicator of whether this organization has anything to hide that you might want to be aware of.

It is no longer surprising in this day in age to hear that businesses are sourcing their T-shirts, their coffee, their pens from sweat shops for one very simple reason; it is cheaper. As nonprofits, keeping costs down is a hallmark of our business practice, however this is somewhere where we need to draw the line, lest we find ourselves directly contributing to unethical companies that contradict our mission statements. Nonprofits like Labour Behind the Label are devoted to making this struggle more visible, and ethical purchasing more attainable, but we all must play our part.  Moving forward, as Family Support Services examines our options when it comes to organizational swag, we will be sure to do thorough research into how best to provide a full donor experience, while still practicing what we preach in terms of equality, sustainability, and ethical labor.

Resources:
Cladwell. (January 25, 2016) “4 Ways to Know if a Company is Ethical and Sustainable.” Retrieved from: https://cladwell.com/blog/2016/1/22/4-ways-to-know-if-a-company-is-ethical-sustainable

McCambridge, Ruth. (January 24, 2019). “Charitable Swag and Mission Violations: The Spice Girls, Comic Relief, and a Factory in Bangladesh.” Nonprofit Quarterly. Retrieved from: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2019/01/24/charitable-swag-and-mission-violations-the-spice-girls-comic-relief-and-a-factory-in-bangladesh/

Keefe-Feldman, Michael. (June 22, 2012). Notes on the Importance of “Swag” from Obama and Romney. Nonprofit Quarterly. Retrieved from: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2012/06/22/notes-on-the-importance-of-swag-from-obama-and-romney/

Momin, Sam. (June 23, 2017). Keep Donors Coming Back with Memorable Swag Bags. Nonprofit PRO. Retrieved from: https://www.nonprofitpro.com/post/keep-donors-coming-back-memorable-swag-bags-fundraisers/