Northern California Grantmakers was invited to join our colleagues at Southern California Grantmakers and San Diego Grantmakers in opposition to AB2855, a bill widely viewed to be unnecessary and overly burdensome to California nonprofits. Opposition to the bill is being led by CalNonprofits, The League of California Community Foundations and California Arts Advocates, along with many others. The NCG board of directors approved NCG sign-on to a letter crafted by the three California-based regional associations of grantmakers jointly opposing the bill.
As noted in the letter, there is broad agreement that this bill imposes new obligations and burdens on nonprofits to provide their legal charitable information on all online and print materials through a link to the California State Attorney General’s website, without improving upon existing mechanisms already in place, such as Guide Star and Foundation Center, that provide such information. Moreover, the bill runs counter to efforts by the Obama Administration and many in the philanthropic community to support deeper conversations about the need to support nonprofit indirect costs.
The bill is currently under review by the Assembly Appropriations Committee. We are hopeful that our collective voice and expertise will make an impact. We'll keep you updated as this issue evolves, and will apprise you of opportunities to get involved should you wish to do so.
NCG remains committed to strengthening its capacity to leverage policy in collaboration with our members in Southern California and other partners as a means to affect change in our sector and more broadly. We look forward to engaging you in and keeping you apprised of our efforts to this end.