Do you remember the groundbreaking 2014 Causes Count: The Economic Power of California's Nonprofit Sector report? That study revealed a few surprising things including, for example, that nonprofits employ one in 15 California residents. Now CalNonprofits and The Nonprofit Institute at the University of San Diego are again collaborating to update the report and dive deeper into areas like government funding. And we need your help! 

If you are a senior leader at a California nonprofit please complete this 10-15 minute survey. Your responses will help inform policymakers, philanthropic leadership, and the public about what we do and why it’s important. Please share the survey link with nonprofit executives in other organizations – the more organizations that respond, the more useful the report will be for us all. 

Prizes! If you choose to share your contact information at the end of the survey, you will be entered to win one of 15 prizes: iPad (1 winner), Unicorns Unite: How Foundations and Nonprofits can Forge Epic Partnerships by Vu Le, Jane Leu, and Jessamyn Shams-Lau (2 winners), A Nonprofit's Guide to Human Resources by Jan Masaoka (2 winners), or a $10 gift card to Starbucks (10 winners) Plus, we will send you an electronic version of the report when it is released to the public in Spring 2019. 

The Fall 2018 Buzz is now available online, and the beautiful hard copy will be appearing in members' mailboxes soon. Below is an excerpt from CEO Jan Masaoka's letter:

Should we be optimistic or pessimistic right now? Consider:

• Half empty: Terrifying fires raged across California, leaving devastated families and ecosystems.
• Half full: An election where “California voters kicked ass” (to quote Mother Jones) with high voter turnout of 50% of eligible voters, a smidgen above national rate.
• Half empty: To be officially poor, a family of four can’t have income more than $24,300. And yet, one in every four California children lives in a family that poor.
• Half empty: California has had more mass shootings than any other state (since 1984) even though we have strict gun control laws.

In sunny California, pessimism is often seen as a character flaw, or perhaps an indicator of depression that needs to be treated. We often fail to recognize that a poor person in a marginalized community may have more reason to be pessimistic than a well-off white person.

Here is a different way to look at it: Pessimism is about an analysis of the facts; optimism is an orientation of the spirit.

Or put another way, after the Italian writer Antonio Gramsci: Our intellect tells us to be pessimistic, but we must will ourselves to be optimistic. Let’s stop believing that we must be either optimistic or pessimistic. We must be both.

Click here to read the Fall 2018 issue of the Buzz newsletter. Interested in becoming a Member? Click here to find out more!

The  Johnson Amendment (passed in 1954) forbids nonprofits from endorsing candidates. We can of course take positions on ballot measures and legislation, but the Johnson Amendment protects us from being pressured to support a particular candidate for Congress, Board of Supervisors, or any other elect office.

Imagine if a major donor asked your organization to publicly support his choice for the Board of Supervisors. Or if a foundation president sent a letter to grantees asking them to publicly oppose the same candidate. The Johnson Amendment protects us from this kind of pressure.

Right now a small section has been added to the big federal spending bill that would crumble the Johnson Amendment. We need to let our members of Congress know that our work depends on having that section removed.

What you can do today:

1. Please call Congress' main switchboard (202-224-3121) to deliver this message to Diane Feinstein, Kamala Harris, and your representative in the House (if you don't know who that is click here to search by zip code.)

2. Then use the template below to tweet your Representative and Senators. Diane Feinstein is @SenFeinstein and Kamala Harris is @SenKamalaHarris. You can find other members of Congress' twitter handles here (note - this list is somewhat out of date, so if your representative isn't listed, please check their website.)

“.[Representative/Senator’s Twitter Handle] Partisanship has NO place in charitable organizations – whether churches, charities, or foundations. Oppose all efforts to include a controversial #JohnsonAmendment rider in any legislation being voted on this month. http://bit.ly/2NgDS5U”

3. Encourage your colleagues to call and tweet too.

Want more background? Check out GiveVoice.org, the national coalition of nonprofits protecting nonpartisanship. https://www.givevoice.org/

Image Credit: Independent Sector