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Here is a discourse about government regulation of small Non-profit Organizations.  Following is a list of good and useful internet links.  They came with this free website from   www.freeservers.com  they are a worthwhile company and service plese support them and their advertisers if you can.  You can also get there a free or inexpensive site of your own.

 

 

We feel there should be no requirement for a small non-profit to file annual returns.   It has no purpose worthy of the efforts and cost the small non-profit would need to pay to do so.   It also creates the potential for abusive over regulation and over harrasment by government officials and others who wish with malice to do the small organization harm.  Most small organizations are well known by their donors and supporters.  That is the best form of regulation.

 

It is easy for those of you who sit in Ivory Towers to make judgments of others.  I have a great idea.  Let us make it the law that only persons who fall below the national poverty lines may be involved with and participate in the operations of Non Profit Organizations.  Require everyone employed by them to have salaries lower than the poverty rate.  Let us forbid them to own anything. This way if there is fraud, we know that it genuinely helps the poor.   In addition, every one of them who is wealthy or the slightest bit above poverty we can just throw in jail. In fact, why not just make it illegal for anyone to be paid to do anything for a non-profit.  They must work free.  Then, any operator of any small non-profit who is not also homeless we can just sweep into a prison.  The same should be true for elected officials.
 
Then those involved will all be poor.  Only those who really understand the needs of the poor will be involved in this work and no one has to worry about stealing, misuse of the funds or otherwise.  Only those with genuine interest would ever even be involved and we will not have to worry about things like the reputations of all of us in this work.
 
You have prejudice in your minds.  The idea that only sophisticated upper class persons, as you are honest and well meaning is your prejudice.  You, who are looking for there to be enough room for yourselves to get highly paid, or well paid or adequately paid to rule over pots of money and power while doing things that look good on paper but have no real value.  Your goal is to create a few well-paid positions for persons who are college graduates in the social sciences who pretend they are doing good while doing nothing of any significance.  You hate the idea that there could be less sophisticated persons who are actually doing the good work.   You want to be able to condemn those of us who are doing this work because we care, see the need, are zealous, and want to help.  You want to prevent us through mindless government bureaucracy from doing the work of helping the poor.  This so that a few of you can pretend you are doing good while what you are doing is self-serving.  The only concern you seem to have is that your reputations will be damaged.   If you are all so greatly concerned about honesty in the non-profit sector is it because you want honesty? Or you want the your dishonest practices to be established and sanctioned.  
 
I have been homeless twice during the past four years.  I have served as a volunteer of a non-profit organization.  We did not take in any money or spend it. Certainly, I refused to let the organization that I had founded to help the poor be a means for me to personally enrich myself.   Even when I was poor I could not and would not use the organization or the idea to advance myself.  In fact, now still most of the money comes out of my pocket.   You who lie in the lap of luxury compared to me would have it set up that my organization should be deemed evil or improper.  Can only the rich and sophisticated benefit from the ability to establish a non-profit organization to do good?
 
A small organization has only a few persons involved and it only raises a little money. Some from the public and some from those who are interested and involved.  They know if it is valid or invalid.  Such organization do not get grants or large gifts because the wealthy only give to causes they support and those they have other wealth friends involved with.  The idea that the small non-profit needs to even file any form with the government is simply another way for those of you who are the ‘haves’ to deprive us who are the ‘have-nots’ of any means to help ourselves.  We know what we need and we do not need you - who in our eyes,  are just as crooked as the ones you propose to regulate - to regulate yourselves so you can continue to personally benefit from the idea of non-profit and tax exempt; and then make it next to impossible for us to even try for fear of being criminalized because we are too poor or to without knowledge to “file papers.”    
 
Do you think that when I was homeless out on the streets but still the founder and overseer of the help the homeless campaign and Read the Bible America, Inc.  I had the means to concern myself with filing forms for the IRS.  Should my ability to help others and enjoy the same tax deductible status that you enjoy be lost because I was homeless or the case that I did not even know there was a requirement to file.  What does the filing do besides create another bureaucracy?   You want to assume that everyone is a crook and then try to set up the standards to catch them at it.   That is cruel and wrong. 
 
 I offend you by suggesting that you should be poor if you are doing non-profit sector work.  Why?   Suppose that is my standard of judging honesty and fitness for deserving tax-exempt status.  Should I use the government to impose it on you?   There are probably enough jobs in non-profits where persons are making far above the poverty standard for working for the non-profit.  In addition, I will tell you if we took each of those positions and divided what they make up into amounts equal to the poverty level and paid them to poor individuals to do the work.  We would employ many more persons with that money.   Most of those on welfare and in poverty would have higher incomes than they have now.   Those who are in it now for the money would go elsewhere.   We thus could remove the misuse and abuse of that type.
 
Well you offend me when you try to use the threat of the government to prevent me from doing good and having the full blessings of doing good, the same benefits you have.   The problem with most large non-profits is they end up becoming something that is sustained more to continue itself than to benefit the society.  We in the private sector are supposed to improve our society by doing good not be making it harder for others especially the poor to do well or to help themselves out of poverty.   But instead a few of us middle classers use it to pool a small amount of our money and create some middle class jobs for some others.  The poor get little or any help and it often is meaningless. They are helped to stay poor not to get rich.
 
I am just presently becoming aware of any need to file any papers.  Now according to you it should be written into the law that I should both lose the non-profit status of the organization and be considered a criminal because I did not know and because I was too poor to have abided by the rules if I had known them.  
 
What insanity.   If some one is doing well it should be and will be obvious. If they are doing evil it is and will be obvious.   If someone means to do well and is doing wrong because they do not understand then they should be brought into compliance not put in jail, fined or otherwise.   That whole idea can become an abuse of rights and power.  There is no effective legal council available to person who needs legal help. There is some and we take note of that but for each person who can’t afford help and needs it there are three who need it and can not get it.  They cannot afford it.   We pacify ourselves by thinking they are all getting help and could but it is not what actually happens.   Should each large non-profit be required to give a percent of their revenues to provide the help free to every small one that needs it or asks for it?   You would not like that. Would you?  That goes to show where your heart truly is in this.  It is for your own interests and neither for the good of the community nor for the establishment of good public policy.
 
We need to use the government to empower others not diminish their ability to do well.  First, there should be an exemption for all organizations of under say one – million dollars a year in revenues to need to file any documents at all.  Then there should be a need for protection of any accused of wrongdoing at public expense.  There are many who could be doing well and end up with any mal-content in their midst who just wants to stop the doing of good and who could do it by making false, unfounded accusations.  I have been in organizations where that happens.   The rich are often trying to get over on the poor.  Some ignorant person wants to make trouble to try and make themselves important in their own eyes.  Evil minds will find a way to cheat even with great regulation.  However, in small organizations, everyone knows everyone else’s business and it is unlikely that there is stealing going on.  It is often the case that a hard working doer of good will do the good and then get the blame for wrong doing he or she were powerless to change or knew nothing about.   Why do you want to foster such scenarios and empower those who want to stop the hard working doers of good and make it easier for the real cheats to cheat with an official sanction.

 

The following is a list useful links that I have compiled. If you wish to be added to this list, please send me an e-mail.

at readthebibleamerica@gmail.com

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