Greetings, readers! My name is Erin Finley, and this is a blog purely about the Nonprofit sector and reactions to readings I have done regarding it. I am a Political Science and PPPM major, and I am hoping to one day work for the government. Nonprofit classes such as this interest me because I don't know much about the third sector, and it is inspiring to be in a class with so many people who want to make a difference in the world. If I had to choose a nonprofit organization to work/volunteer for, I would choose the Humane Society (or an offshoot of it) because I love domestic animals, and there is a lot of work to be done regarding the well-being of domestic animals in the United States. I plan to volunteer for them when I grow up and have a job, but in the meantime my family and I love all of the animals we have rescued from shelters and mills. I just learned a very important lesson: save your post before publishing it, or else it might get lost, and 2 hours of work is officially down the drain...
Chapter 1 is interesting to me because it brings up many things that I had before not known about nonprofit organizations, like what organizations qualify for tax exemption and tax write-offs for donations, and which do not. I believe that tax exemption status for nonprofit organizations is a very beneficial tool for its creators. Without tax exemption status, people with little knowledge of how to run such an organization may never be able to get on their feet and allow the organization to flourish.
While those who argue that organizations such as the NRA and AARP should get tax exemption status, I do not agree, because those organizations are able to politically campaign for certain candidates, and as organizations they only apply to certain percentages of the population.
I also like the fact that people can donate to nonprofit organizations and claim it as a tax write-off, because it enables "average joes" to give alongside people like Bill Gates, and still be able to live within their means. If this were not the case, I feel that fewer people would donate to organizations because they felt that since the government was already taking their money for public use, they did not need to donate any more of it.
Chapter 2 was more interesting to me than Chapter 1 because it observes nonprofit organizations from a political scientist's point of view. It says that nonprofit organizations (according to Tocqueville) are a necessity for a thriving democracy because they experimentation with ideas and values that the government would otherwise toss to the side because of the potential to fail. Nonprofit organizations are also seen as necessary to democracies because they voice the opinions of individuals who might normally be ignored by the majority. I agree with this statement, which I would not have thought of before I had read the chapter.
Finally, and the most interesting to me, is the reading by Andrew Carnegie which says that while there are those individuals who might say that Communism is better than capitalism because the government knows how best to allocate money to those who need it, he says that this just cannot be, and it has been proven through the failure of Communism through recent centuries. This is because people donate more when they know exactly where their money is going (such as donating to Planned Parenthood for the purpose of protecting the right to choose), and less when they know it is just going to be divided up and given to areas they might not support (such as abortion clinics). Capitalism has brought a great thing to the United States: the power to choose a potential outcome out of many visible, such as through starting a nonprofit organization that may or may not fail. I enjoyed this reading the most, because while I might normally view capitalism as a negative aspect with concern for the "little guys," I cannot deny that it does give citizens the right to make their own decisions on where to donate their money.
Erin, I too found the Carnegie reading to be the most interesting. I believe that he was right in believing that people are more inclined to support financially what they support on an ethical level. I think that people resent being told they must give back a percentage of their hard earned wages. However, in my opinion it would seem that the faction of people who do not feel the obligation to give their government money, would be much more appeased by the concept of tax-deductible donations to organizations that the individual may be more supportive of.
ReplyDeleteErin,
ReplyDeleteI also found Chapter 2 to be more interesting because it discussed some theories behind nonprofits and why they are created. In particular, the connection that Tocqueville made between nonprofits and democracy that you discussed and describing a nonprofit as a sort of "back-up" in providing services to individuals in the minority. Seems like a team approach.
Erin,
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with your first few paragraphs about tax exemption. In fact, while I agree that tax exemption is a necessity to the life of nonprofits I sometimes wonder if it's still too little of an act for small organizations already trying to stretch their means to make meaningful impacts. I wonder if it would ever be possible to make the income of nonprofit employee's tax exempt as well. Then, in theory, nonprofits could spend slightly less on payroll and stretch their money further? I'm sure there are some holes in that logic but I figure it's only week one and the whole point of me taking this class is to explore ideas I don't fully understand.
Erin,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Toucqeville. If the government were to try and help everybody on their own the entire government would become way too bloated to function properly. Let the nonprofits figure out what works and the government can support them with funding, tax exemption status and other types of support. I think this also partially leads into Carnegie's assertion that communism doesn't work for nonprofits. Communism can't sit by and let others do the nonprofit work. It has to step in and do the work and will do it less efficiently, more costly and overall less effective. Let the government sit back and later support what actually works.