The legislative session is only 5 days from ending, and we need your help on two important bills.

Editor's note: Great news! Thanks to your advocacy, AB 2252 was just signed today (Sept 10, 2018) by Governor Brown! 

Support AB 2252 to make state funding opportunities more accessible

For AB 2252 —helping make state grants to nonprofits more accessible— please help keep this good bill moving forward by calling your Assemblymember and asking them to support it. For AB 888, we need to put the brakes on this bad bill- please call Senator Scott Wiener’s office in opposition. Support AB 2252 to make state funding opportunities more accessible AB 2252 (Limón) is sponsored by CalNonprofits, was approved by the Senate last Thursday, and is now headed to the Assembly for another vote.

Action Step: Please take 3 minutes to call your Assemblymember and ask them to vote for AB 2252 to create an online portal centralizing state funding opportunities, making them more accessible to more nonprofits and making it easier to apply for them. Find your Assemblymember here. Leave this message: I'm _______ from _________ (nonprofit). Please vote yes on AB 2252 which creates a website that compiles information about all state grant opportunities for nonprofits! We know many of you have already supported this bill (thank you!), so please make another phone call today to help get it to the finish line. (Click here to read more background about AB 2252).

Oppose AB 888 that would extend a troubled raffle experiment

This week, Senator Scott Wiener (San Francisco) is a key player in whether AB 888 (Low) succeeds to extend a problematic 50/50 raffle carve-out for nonprofit affiliates of major league sports teams. Senators will be voting without data about the first three years of this experiment, because there has never been any sort of review to determine if communities actually benefit from these raffles.

Action step: Please call Senator Wiener’s Capitol office today at (916) 651-4011 and let him know that you oppose AB 888 because the promised review of these raffles never happened. And because 50/50 raffles blur the line between gambling and legitimate raffles, they make it harder for authentic nonprofits to use raffles as a trusted fundraising tool.

More background: CalNonprofits, veterans’ organizations, and many Native American Tribes are against AB 888 unless and until a comprehensive review and audit of the raffles are conducted. Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office also recently testified against these large-scale raffles, noting that they have operated without adequate oversight. (Click here to read more background about AB 888). Thank you for your support and please contact Nancy Berlin if you have any questions about AB 2252 or AB 888.

A reminder: You can keep track of the status of bills impacting nonprofits on our Legislative Tracker

Photo credit: California Senate Chambers photo is from KQED.