Politics

Lobbyists appear to be significantly cutting back on the money they give to support the favored charities of Members of Congress, one of the long-standing ways firms have curried favor with powerful Members.

Lobbying firms and their clients disclosed spending less than $10.4 million on Congressional charity events, meetings and gifts in the last half of 2010, according to a disclosure reports filed at the end of January.

The Ronald Reagan centennial endowment campaign surpassed its $100 million goal Saturday, hours before the Gipper's 100th birthday. The nonprofit Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation told The Associated Press that the milestone was reached about two years after the foundation set its $100 million endowment goal.

Foundation board chairman Frederick Ryan said achieving the steep milestone for the nation's 40th chief executive, and the timing, were remarkable.

Today, with over a trillion dollars a year in revenues, hundreds of thousands of nonprofit organizations of all sorts and sizes qualify under federal, state and local laws for multiple tax benefits.

Federal, state and local policymakers in both parties are asking tough but timely questions about the nonprofit sector: How much does it lighten local property tax coffers and reduce federal tax revenues? What is the total tab for all the tax-funded subsidies? And what does the wider public actually get in return for all the tax breaks and government funding?

Connecticut’s new Democratic governor, Dan Malloy, has created a cabinet-level position to advocate for nonprofit social-service providers as lawmakers work to address a problem shared by many other states—a looming budget deficit.

As the new Congress starts work today, it includes an influx of new Republican faces brought in by the midterm elections and confronts growing pressure to cut spending to bring down the national debt­. These changes, in turn, could have a big impact on programs that affect charities and the people they serve.

Here is some of what the nonprofit world can expect from the new Congress:

Here are six more online fundraising communications takeaways gleaned from the 2010 elections.

If the 2008 election was about hope and change, the 2010 midterm campaign, judging by its direct mail, was mostly focused on anger. That's the most obvious takeaway based on a review of the fundraising appeals and campaign fliers that we've seen during the year. Whether directed at President Obama, or at congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, this emotional touchpoint dominated political mail like it hasn't since the days of Bill Clinton.

With the dust beginning to settle after election 2010, now is a good time to take a look at the role direct mail played in how the parties and candidates raised money and turned voters out to the polls ... or not. As with every election, there were new movements and people wrestling for power, but the mail they sent was, with very few exceptions, pretty traditional.

Between President Barack Obama's successful 2008 online campaign and the myriad tactics government nominees employed this fall, the political sphere has provided many lessons in regards to online fundraising and communications.

Now that Republicans have made major gains in the Congressional elections, donors have a better idea of how lawmakers are thinking about taxes—and that could be a major influence in their decision making as the year-end giving push gets into high gear.

Even though Republicans made low tax rates for the wealthy part of their election pledge, their victories do not mean that wealthy donors now lack a key motivation to give, says Robert F. Sharpe, a Memphis planned-giving consultant.