California Dreamin’ | Now It’s Sacramento’s Turn to Stick Its Nose Into Nonprofits’ Business
Debate all you want the merits of proposed legislation in California that “would require a private foundation with assets over 250,000,000 to collect specified ethnic and gender data pertaining to its governance and grantmaking,” but the end result would be more work for nonprofits, greater government intrusion into their operations, and no discernible increase in effectiveness. The bill, which passed the Assembly last week, would impel foundations to post and publish “the racial and gender composition of the board of directors or trustees, the number of grants awarded to specified organizations serving ethnic minority communities, and the percentage of grant dollars awarded to specified organizations where 50% or more of the board members are ethnic minorities.”
Once again we see creeping governmental encroachment into the nonprofit sector. For those who argue that nonprofits should greatly cut back on administrative costs to focus on mission-oriented activities, I cite this bill as evidence that such activities as lobbying and communications are necessary precisely to stifle such efforts and allow the sector to deliver its services without undue interference. As the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, with which I am very rarely in agreement, put it yesterday, “Foundations and charities that don’t want to start apportioning their donations by skin color, or between gays and heterosexuals, had better start describing this idea as the political shakedown it is.”
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