Issues

3/1/2006 - New advocacy guidelines issued by the IRS. A great opportunity to get specific guidelines of what non-profits should NOT do by looking over how organizations got in trouble in the 2004 elections.
here's the report: http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=154622,00.html
here's the new guidelines: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/paci_procedures-feb_22_2006.pdf.pdf

Coming Someday: The Massena Foundation has chosen to "spend out" or "sunset" by granting out all its assets and closing its doors when the money is gone, around 2015. Why, and should more foundations be doing it?

Why Race? The Annie E. Casey Foundation has put together a very nice toolkit called "Race Matters" for exploring this issue. From their User's Guide:

The Toolkit is grounded in the following assumptions:

Race matters; almost every indicator of well-being shows troubling disparities/disproportionality by race.

Disparities are often created and maintained inadvertently through policies and practices that contain barriers to opportunity.

It’s possible - and only possible- to close equity gaps by using strategies determined through an intentional focus on race.

If opportunities in all key areas of well-being are equitable, then equitable results will follow.

Given the right message, analysis, and tools, people will work toward racial equity.