Nonprofit Tweets of the Week – 4/21/23 – Nonprofit Law Blog

Stay informed of the week’s notable events and shared resources with this curated list of Nonprofit Tweets of the Week.

Notable Events of the Week:

• “Fox News agreed Tuesday to pay $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems, settling a lawsuit brought by a company that was repeatedly smeared on air with fantastical claims of helping to rig a presidential election and marking an abrupt end to one of the most consequential and closely watched media cases in decades. … The settlement agreement came with only a grudging acknowledgment by Fox that it had been wrong in repeatedly airing false statements that backed up President Donald Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud after the 2020 election.” Washington Post
• “The Russian government has become far more successful at manipulating social media and search engine rankings than previously known, boosting lies about Ukraine’s military and the side effects of vaccines with hundreds of thousands of fake online accounts, according to documents recently leaked on the chat app Discord.” Washington Post
• “Mexico went on to wield the surveillance tool against civilians who stand up to the state — abuses the country insists it has stopped. But The Times found that Mexico has continued to use Pegasus to spy on people who defend human rights, even in recent months.” NY Times

Top 10 Nonprofit Tweets:

• Tax Law Center at NYU Law: The Tax Law Center filed an amicus brief supporting the constitutionality of a longstanding federal statute that requires information reporting from charitable organizations: Medium
• Campaign for Accountability: NEW: Supreme Court powerbroker Leonard Leo appears to have funneled millions of dollars to himself through several tax-exempt organizations, which would be a direct violation of IRS rules. Now, CfA is calling for an investigation. Watchdog Requests IRS Investigate Leonard Leo Affiliated Nonprofits for Potential Self-Dealing
• Chronicle of Philanthropy: Declining revenue is especially concerning as it had been booming for years — increasing 69 percent from 2012 to 2022, even as donor participation dropped 19 percent. Giving to Nonprofits Fell Nearly 2 Percent in the Last Quarter of 2022, Says New Report
• BoardSource: “The dignity agenda points us towards those teams that are taking the long, hard road of doing work in the right way.” Read more from @CEPdata and @IDinsight on the three areas foundations can adopt dignity-focused practices. The Philanthropic Community Must Lead on Advancing Dignity — And Here’s How
• For Purpose Law Group: The Third Warning Sign of a Dysfunctional Nonprofit Board
• Independent Sector: The 2023 #ValueofVolunteerTime is out🎉 The latest VoVT hour is estimated to be $31.80, a 6.2% increase from 2021 to 2022. Comment w/ your state to find out the VoVT where you live! Full report ➡️ https://bit.ly/3mMSHQI #IndSector #NationalVolunteerWeek @DoGoodatUMD
• Vu Le: “The problem is that philanthropy is not some sort of sport or brand of ice cream, where it doesn’t matter if you root for the Patriots or the Seahawks, or if you choose mint chocolate chip or rocky road.” Philanthropy’s equivalent of “All Lives Matter” [Ed. Vu makes some critically important points. Still, there is a danger of generalizing about public accountability, justice, & legitimacy when we have a very divided public and different understandings of what constitutes justice & legitimacy. Bridge or fight? Hmm…]
• Nonprofit Quarterly: Why must #philanthropy align assets with mission? The reason is simple: Its investments undermine its grantees. https://bit.ly/43K4Ma1 @ClaraGMiller @HeronFdn #CDFIs
• Mollard Consulting: Most philanthropic giving in the US is generated by individuals. Therefore, if we want to see funds allocated in equitable and effective ways, it is crucial for equity-based giving practices to come alive for individual donors. Learn more via @CEPdata How Donors Can Put Equity into Practice for More Effective Giving
• Gene: Taking Care of Business: Use of a For-Profit Subsidiary by a Nonprofit Organization – @AdlerColvinSF

Equity and Justice:

This Country Will Break Our Hearts Again (Imani Perry, The Atlantic)

I ask, how are the people in this nation so adjusted to Black folks suffering? And then I think: That, too, is naive. The Nashville school shooting just happened. Unquestionably, racism makes our experience as Black Americans more frightening, more dangerous. But they won’t even save their own children. All of our kids are coming of age in a society in crisis. And certain antisocial forces—the ones who make and sell and protect guns, the ones who reject knowledge, the ones who believe that their homes are castles but make terrible rules for other peoples’ bodies, the ones who believe that some of us are ordained to inferiority and vote that way—are trying their darndest to prevent all of our children from growing up and maturing into the kind of people who can make this democracy functional. And people keep putting them in power.

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (film)

American Madness (Jonathan Rosen, The Atlantic)

How (Not) to Dismantle White Supremacy (Sendolo Diaminah , Scot Nakagawa , Sean Thomas-Breitfeld , Rinku Sen , and Lori Villarosa, The Forge)

Research: Where Employees Think Companies’ DEIB Efforts Are Failing (Jeremie Brecheisen, Harvard Business Review)

If there are any attorneys or law students who identify as Black, Native Americans, or Pacific Islanders who are interested in nonprofit corporate and tax-exemption laws and who’d like to pursue this area of practice, I’m committing one hour each week to being a resource. Please contact me if I can be of service. 🙏

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