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Charities Panic over healthcare tab
Jun 11, 2009; Los Angeles Times
| Charitable organizations, who claimed Obama’s proposed federal tax change would reduce the incentive for people to give to nonprofits during a recession, were so successful getting their message across on Capitol Hill that home builders and Realtors did not bother mounting a high-octane lobbying campaign of their own. —Jon Pratt

Under Obama, Greater Reach For Faith-Based Collaborations
Jun 11, 2009; CQ Politics
| President Obama’s faith-based program director, Josh DuBois (dubbed “pastor-in-chief”), is talking about expanding the administration’s involvement of religious groups in federal policy issues, including immigrant aid, financial literacy, and even Middle East peace efforts. DuBois is establishing 11 centers in federal agencies for facilitating faith-based partnerships (one might remember that the Bush Administration also had agency-based faith-based efforts). CQ Politics concludes that “the [faith-based] outreach is part of a carefully calibrated attempt to try to steer more religous [sic] voters in the Democratic column and muffle some of the culture clashes that characterized the past eight years.” —Rick Cohen

Nonprofit LA rehab execs rake in top-dollar pay
Jun 10, 2009; San Francisco Chronicle | The CEO of a drug treatment and rehab center in LA takes in a salary of $330,000 for a 32-hour work week (the COO gets $428,000), but he also gets another $238,000 as the organization’s legal counsel and he, the COO, and two board members collected rent of $2.27 million in 2007 as landlords of 6 properties leased to the program as headquarters and treatment sites. Can anyone here spell conflict of interest? —Rick Cohen

San Francisco’s Bay Institute buys Pier 39 for nonprofit education and research center on Bay ecosystem
Jun 10, 2009; San Francisco Chronicle | The long-awaited purchase of San Francisco’s Aquarium of the Bay by the nonprofit Bay Institute is expected to be completed today to the delight of environmentalists, educators and scientists who will have a stake in the future of the attraction. —Jon Pratt

Nonprofit funding slashed to pay Richmond municipal employee raises
Jun 11, 2009; Richmond Register | Richmond city employees will receive their usual $1,000 annual raise, if the city passes the second reading of its proposed budget.  The raises are the result of trimming funding from several areas in the budget, including annual donations given to most of Richmond’s non-profit organizations, said David Evans, Richmond city manager. —Jon Pratt

Housing help turns the key to 1,014 new Charlotte jobs: Boston-based nonprofit that assists with home financing is expanding into Charlott
Jun 12, 2009; Charlotte Observer | This article about the expansion of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America into Charlotte, North Carolina, provides an opportunity to recognize the relentless advocacy of NACA and its founder/CEO, Bruce Marks. If you read articles and letters to the editor in the Wall Street Journal (try “Activist Financier ‘Terrorizes’ Bankers in Foreclosure Fight”, Wall Street Journal, May 20, 2009), it’s obvious that the bankers fear Marks more than any of their other critics and watchdogs in the subprime mortgage foreclosure scandal that has brought the U.S. and world economies to the brink of ruin. Marks and NACA don’t just criticize, they act, create alternatives, cut deals with the banks they bring to the table, and run mortgage financing and refinancing operations through NACA’s 40 offices around the country. This is an organization worth watching. —Rick Cohen

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