NPR receives $113 million in charitable gifts : NPR

"I support NPR because an informed public is the bedrock of our society, and democracy requires strong, independent journalism," Ballmer, a former member of the NPR Foundation board, said in a statement. "My hope is that this commitment provides the stability and the spark NPR needs to innovate boldly and strengthen its national network." 

Ballmer and her husband, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, have given away more than $3 billion in recent years, according to a joint interview they gave last year to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

 https://www.npr.org/2026/04/16/nx-s1-5787634/npr-113-million-charitable-gifts-connie-ballmer

 

5 pieces of Trump's "big, beautiful bill" that could impact your life

Here's what economic and policy experts said people should watch out for with the "big, beautiful bill" as it heads to the House...

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/02/big-beautiful-bill-gambling-food-stamps 

 

Trump's Stunning Disaster Scheme Gets EXTRA Shady

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1hbxMSMs-A

Opinion | Holiday Charitable Giving Can Raise Thorny Questions - The New York Times

I began thinking about this after I received an email from a psychology professor, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, criticizing what he called "the capitalist system of charities in the U.S.A." He wrote that charities are "competing to the death for the same 50 cents."

"Thus," he went on, "hundreds of organizations fight hunger locally and nationally. When it comes to illnesses, there are thousands of organizations competing. This means a terrible waste of resources." He recommended that I look at Germany, where the government performs functions that charities perform in the United States...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/26/opinion/philanthropy-charitable-giving-holiday.html

A big tax break for charitable giving disappeared. Here's what you can still do. - Money

Your options will depend in part on your age. ....
http://time.com/money/5505778/tax-law-charitable-giving/

The Donald J. Trump Foundation, Explained - The New York Times

Why has President Trump's charity faced years of legal scrutiny? And what does the New York attorney general's lawsuit against it mean? ....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/nyregion/attorney-general-trump-lawsuit.html

The Johnson Amendment Has Survived – Thanks To You! | Americans United

After a months-long fight, we have good news: The final tax bill that the House and Senate will vote on next week will NOT contain language to repeal the Johnson Amendment. A big thank you to all of you who emailed and called your members of Congress and educated your friends and family about this issue. You are the ones who won this fight.....
https://au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/the-johnson-amendment-has-survived-thanks-to-you

Republicans can't make dark money political contributions tax deductible after all

Awww. Republicans are being blocked from giving themselves and their billionaire donors one of the gifts they’d planned for their tax bill. The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that Republicans can’t include a provision letting churches and 501(c)3 non-profits endorse candidates in the bill if they want to use reconciliation to pass it with 51 votes.....
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/12/15/1724628/-Republicans-can-t-make-dark-money-political-contributions-tax-deductible-after-all

Tax Bill Could Offer New Way To Funnel Political Cash — And Make It Tax Deductible : NPR

Wealthy Americans may get a new conduit for political money in the tax overhaul bill now being reconciled on Capitol Hill.....
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/08/569235077/tax-bill-could-offer-new-way-to-funnel-political-cash-and-make-it-tax-deductible

Eric Trump Foundation Appears To Have Paid Charity Money To Trump Org

Eric Trump’s charitable foundation seems to have paid the Trump Organization hundreds of thousands of charitable dollars, Forbes reported in a lengthy investigation published Tuesday, despite Trump’s claims that the Trump Organization did not charge the foundation for use of its golf courses. 

Eric Trump has undoubtedly been generous in raising millions for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital through charitable golf tournaments. But in reviewing IRS filings, Forbes found hundreds of thousands of dollars that the Trump Organization seems to have received from charitable organizations — including the Eric Trump Foundation....
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/forbes-eric-trump-foundation-trump-organization-payments

How Trump co-opted his kid's cancer charity to line his own pockets

It seemed like Eric Trump actually started out with the best of intentions when founding his Eric Trump Foundation to support research into children's cancer by raising lots of money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the leading pediatric cancer center. He threw huge annual golf events (at the family's golf course, naturally), with all of the money raised going to the hospital because daddy didn't charge anything to use the venue and all the other costs were comped.

While it might have started out with the best of intentions on Eric's part, daddy then got ahold of him and reminded him that just looking good isn't enough if you don't profit directly. That's the picture that emerges from a Forbes investigation by Dan Alexander....
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1669377

Send a Message

Today the 115th Congress will be sworn in.

As your voice on Capitol Hill we’re not wasting anytime getting to work in 2017. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be meeting with every member of Congress to advocate for secular and science-based policy, as well as educate them about the one-quarter of Americans who are nonreligious. These meetings provide a valuable opportunity to highlight issues important to secular Americans and there’s one issue in particular we need your help getting ahead of this year...

On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump vowed to push for the repeal of the Johnson amendment, a law passed by Congress in 1954 that prohibits nonprofits (including churches) from endorsing political candidates...
http://action.secular.org/secular/app/write-a-letter?0&engagementId=269893

The Eric Trump Charity Paid the Trump Organization Big Bucks | Alternet

After sustained outcry about his foundation providing big-money donors access to the incoming presidential family, Eric Trump finally announced Thursday that he will suspend all operations of his charitable foundation. Donald Trump, on a brief respite from using Twitter to promote a nuclear arms race or whine about celebrities hating him, used the opportunity to complain about his family being treated like every other clan that has occupied the White House writing, “My wonderful son, Eric, will no longer be allowed to raise money for children with cancer because of a possible conflict of interest with my presidency. Isn't this a ridiculous shame? He loves these kids, has raised millions of dollars for them, and now must stop. Wrong answer!”...
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/eric-trump-charity-paid-trump-organization-big-bucks

Steve Bannon created a 'nonpartisan charity' to funnel money from billionaires to Breitbart

Donald Trump and Steve Bannon have more in common than just denying their connection to white supremacists: they both broke charity laws for their own benefit. Donald Trump’s chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon accepted $376,000 in pay over four years for working 30 hours a week at a tiny tax-exempt charity in Tallahassee while also serving as the hands-on executive chairman of Breitbart News Network....
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1603508

Four months of solid work from David Fahrenthold confirms: Donald Trump is a lying sack of Scrooge

Since he first looked in to see whether or not Trump had followed through on a promise to send millions to veteran’s groups (not), David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post has been diligently working through the records of the Trump Foundation. In those months the story he’s turned up has been one of a fund used to buy whatever Trump wanted, bribe political officials to look the other way on Trump shenanigans, pay off Trump’s legal bills, and act as a slush fund to hide income all the while illegally accepting donations from across the country.

He’s also found that Trump not only isn’t very charitable, he lies about it....
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1589086

Noelle George on Foundation Beyond Belief (The Humanist Hour #211)

We like to say that we’re “good without a god,” but the fact of the matter is that we’re not always very organized about it. One of the good things organized religion has introduced to the world is ways to encourage giving and volunteering to help those in need. Foundation Beyond Belief is a secular nonprofit organization that provides a similar structure to help those of us who have left religion or who never had religion in the first place when we want to give.

Noelle George is the executive director of Foundation Beyond Belief and the former head of the Beyond Belief Network, Foundation Beyond Belief’s program that supports secular volunteers across the country. She joins us this week to discuss the history of the organization, its various programs, and how people can contribute time, money, or word of mouth to Foundation Beyond Belief. She also talks about the matching grant that American Humanist Association is offering this month to support the Humanist Service Corps’ work in Ghana.
Interview: 
http://thehumanist.com/multimedia/podcast/humanist-hour-211-noelle-george-foundation-beyond-belief

Trump Foundation lacks the certification required for charities that solicit money

Donald Trump’s charitable foundation — which has been sustained for years by donors outside the Trump family — has never obtained the certification that New York requires before charities can solicit money from the public, according to the state attorney general’s office.

Under the laws in New York, where the Donald J. Trump Foundation is based, any charity that solicits more than $25,000 a year from the public must obtain a special kind of registration beforehand. Charities as large as Trump’s must also submit to a rigorous annual audit that asks — among other things — whether the charity spent any money for the personal benefit of its officers.

If New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) finds that Trump’s foundation raised money in violation of the law, he could order the charity to stop raising money immediately. With a court’s permission, Schneiderman could also force Trump to return money that his foundation has already raised....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-foundation-lacks-the-certification-required-for-charities-that-solicit-money/2016/09/29/7dac6a68-8658-11e6-ac72-a29979381495_story.html

Billionaire commits $500 million to help refugees and migrants

Billionaire George Soros said Tuesday that he would invest $500 million to fund projects aiding migrants and refugees — more money than some entire countries have dedicated toward the people affected by the largest migration crisis since World War II.

The announcement comes at a time when 65.3 million people have been forcibly displaced from their home countries, with at least 21.4 million people registered as refugees with the United Nations refugee agency....
https://thinkprogress.org/george-soros-500-million-refugee-migrant-7fab236fe025#.oymn18clc

Trump used $258,000 from his charity to settle legal problems - The Washington Post

Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses, according to interviews and a review of legal documents. Those cases, which together used $258,000 from Trump’s charity, were among four newly documented expenditures in which Trump may have violated laws against “self-dealing” — which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses. 

In one case, from 2007, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club faced $120,000 in unpaid fines from the town of Palm Beach, Fla., resulting from a dispute over the height of a flagpole. In a settlement, Palm Beach agreed to waive those fines — if Trump’s club made a $100,000 donation to a specific charity for veterans. Instead, Trump sent a check from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a charity funded almost entirely by other people’s money, according to tax records....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-used-258000-from-his-charity-to-settle-legal-problems/2016/09/20/adc88f9c-7d11-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html

An Oklahoma Charity Rejected an Atheist’s Donation, So He’s Raising More Until They Say Yes

Matt Wilbourn, an atheist living in Muskogee, Oklahoma, tried donating $100 to a home for local children (many of whom are orphans), but his money was rejected by the organization after they learned his contribution was made on behalf of a local atheist organization....
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/08/23/an-oklahoma-charity-rejected-an-atheists-donation-so-hes-raising-more-until-they-say-yes/