Nonprofit new york 2024 policy platform

I. Strengthen Financial Sustainability

New York City faces a current and outyear financial crisis. In response, the city has initiated across the board sweeping cuts to all city agencies that threaten the financial sustainability of all nonprofit sectors. Nonprofits must have the financial resources to carry out our missions, but budgeting decisions, historical policies and funding practices have led to abrupt service cancellations, a chronically under-funded sector and unsustainable funding models. Nonprofit New York advocates for policies that support nonprofits to provide living wages and benefits to our workers, cover the costs of operating expenses including indirect costs and facilities, and build reserves to weather unforeseen fiscal shocks. Nonprofit New York advocates for flexible funding models that grant organizations freedom to respond to the most pressing issues facing our communities.

Legislative and Policy Priorities

1. Budget
   1. #WHY15: City Budgeting Must Include Nonprofit Expertise and Preserve Critical Services. Nonprofits were not consulted or meaningfully included in city decisions about programmatic service cuts. Nonprofit New York will continue to advance the #WHY15 campaign, which opposes arbitrary across the board funding cuts, calls for greater transparency in the budget process, and meaningful inclusion of nonprofit organizations running service programs in decisions about funding changes.
   2. Federal and State Aid for New York City. Federal pandemic aid has expired at a time when New York City is receiving significant and continuous numbers of asylum-seekers and other migrants. Nonprofit New York supports federal and state aid to New York City to support the newest New Yorkers and preserve critical services overwhelmingly carried out by nonprofit organizations.
2. Government Contracting and Philanthropy
   1. State Contracting Reform. Nonprofit New York supports the following legislation to improve state contracting for nonprofit organizations:
      1. A7518 (Zinerman) which would create a transparency database for contracted not-for-profit organizations that includes the status of a contract in the approval and execution process.
      2. A7531 (Zinerman) which would amend the state finance law to include the creation of a not-for-profit contracting advisory committee tasked with advising the governor, comptroller and state agencies on the implantation and operation of this committee. Nonprofit New York strongly supports the committee prioritizing critical funding issues including cost of living adjustments for workers and fully funding indirect rates in state contracts.
   2. City Contracting Reform. Nonprofit New York supports the following legislation to improve city contracting for nonprofit organizations:
      1. Int 0511-2022 (Stevens) would require the City Chief Procurement Officer to conduct a study and issue a report on the timing and duration of the City’s procurement process for human services contracts exceeding the small purchase limit. The report would identify the steps in the procurement process for these contracts and evaluate the time needed to complete each step. It would provide recommendations to the Procurement Policy Board (PPB) for setting procurement timelines as required under the City Charter. The PPB would then review the report and propose rules establishing procurement timelines for human services contracts. The bill would also mandate that the Chief Procurement Officer begin issuing biannual reports starting in October 2026 on agency compliance with the time schedules set by the PPB.
      2. Int 0510 (Stevens) would establish prevailing wage requirements for city-contracted human service workers.
      3. Int 0011 (Brannan) would require the Procurement Policy Board to create a process for City agencies to inform vendors of the reason for any late payments. It would also require City agencies to provide the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services with reports on any such late payment. The Mayor’s Office of Contract Services would then provide a report to the Mayor and Council every 6 months with information about the late payments from all City agencies.
      4. Int 982 (Brannan) would require interest to be paid on late payments under city contracts with non-profit organizations. The non-profit contractor would not be eligible to receive the interest if the non-profit contractor has received a no-interest and no-service-fee loan issued or authorized by a city agency to cover its expenses in relation to the subject contract.
   3. City Council Member Items Reform– City Council Member Items (also known as Discretionary Funding) sustain many small, culturally specific, and grassroots organizations. The contracting process for discretionary funding is inefficient and results in significant delays in payments for organizations. Nonprofit New York advocates for a more efficient discretionary funding process.
   4. Contract Adjustments for Local Law 97 Compliance– Nonprofits with government contracts should be allowed contract amendments and increased funding to account for increased costs to comply with Local Law 97.
3. Facilities, Space, Capital
   1. Climate Mobilization Act, Local Law 97 of 2019 – Nonprofit New York supports Local Law 97 of 2019, the Climate Mobilization Act. We will work to ensure the implementation of Local Law 97 provides robust education to the nonprofit sector on compliance, equitably distributes the burden of implementation, and includes incentives that relieve nonprofits and landlords leasing to nonprofits. Nonprofit New York advocates that compliance fines and fees be reinvested in funds for nonprofits to make capital improvements to comply with the law.
   2. Capital Fundingreforms to state and city capital funding processes should recognize and include nonprofits in advisory roles, and invest in nonprofit infrastructure.
   3. Commercial rent relief, , nonprofit rent stabilization, and tax abatement programs for landlords who rent space to nonprofits
4. Economic Relief
   1. Passage of the Charitable Act (S.566 /H.R. 3435) that would create a non-itemizer or universal charitable deduction of about $4,600 for individuals and $9,200 for couples who take the standard deduction on their income tax forms.
   2. Passage of Streamlining Federal Grants Act (S. 2286 /H.R. 5934) would improve the effectiveness and performance of federal grants, simplify the application and reporting requirements, and facilitate greater coordination among agencies responsible for delivering services to the public. The legislation would lead to systemic grants reform by establishing a Grants Council composed of all grant-making federal agencies tasked with providing overall guidance to the different agencies for developing plans for reforming their complex and outdated procedures and practices.

II. Promoting Greater Access and Capacity for Nonprofits to Advocate for Their Communities

Nonprofits have a responsibility to advocate for their communities, and policymakers should seek the expertise of organizations. However, fewer than 3% of nonprofits engage in lobbying. Lobbying rules in New York have become increasingly more complex over the past 20 years, and reporting lobbying activity can be resource intensive, particularly for small grassroots and BIPOC-led organizations. This effectively shuts out many nonprofits from the legislative process.

Legislative and Policy Priorities

1. A Place at the Table Campaign (State and City) – legislation to raise the “lobbying threshold” and index the threshold to inflation, to create more access for all 501(c)(3) nonprofits to lobby, not just large and well-resourced organizations. Nonprofit New York supports:
   1. S.5499 (Krueger) / A.5100 (González-Rojas) which would create greater access for small, grassroots nonprofits to engage in the legislative advocacy process by raising the “lobbying threshold” to $10,000.
2. Education for the Sector and Policymakers – With the rise of opaque and unethical money in politics, the general public has increasingly conflated permissible nonprofit lobbying with “dark money.” Policymakers are hesitant to support advocacy rule reforms for nonprofits because they do not understand the various types of nonprofits and their allowable advocacy activities. Our policy agenda includes public education on the permissible advocacy activities for 501(c)(3) nonprofits

III. Defending and Promoting Racial Equity

Following Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College, challenges to race-conscious nonprofit initiatives are mounting. This moment poses an imminent threat to nonprofits’ constitutional right to promote racial equity. Nonprofit New York will monitor ongoing legal developments to race-conscious programming challenges and work in coalition to defend and support the sector’s ability to address racial inequity through funding and programs.

IV. Workforce

Nonprofits cannot promote the general public good if we are not able to champion our workforce, pay nonprofit workers living wages, and provide nonprofit workers equitable benefits. We must understand inequities within our sector, and the needs of our workers, to guide our advocacy efforts.

Legislative and Policy Priorities

1. Increased research on the needs of the nonprofit workforce
2. Living wages for the full nonprofit workforce (support for #JustPay and other nonprofit wage workforce campaigns)
3. Support for just retirement and healthcare benefits for all nonprofit workers
4. Support for student debt relief and reforms to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program

V. Continuously Streamline Reporting and Regulatory Compliance

Nonprofit New York supports fair, reasonable, and transparent registration and regulatory policies that promote public trust in nonprofits, reflect current practice and technology, and relieve unnecessary administrative burdens.

Legislative and Policy Priorities

1. Build upon ongoing reforms to New York’s Not-for-Profit Corporation Law to provide technical fixes, efficiencies, and modernization
2. Support fair, accountable, efficient, and straightforward registration and reporting requirements.