Leaders of 11 of the nation’s largest charities banded together in an urgent appeal to Congressional leaders to reverse last week’s rules change restricting lawmakers’ ability to request earmarks for nonprofits in their districts.

The development comes after House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma) announced last week that nonprofits would be prohibited from receiving earmarks from 2025 funding authorized by the committee for the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) community project grant program. The change, following the House’s elimination of all earmarks from funding bills for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS-Education) last year, threatens to close off the two major sources of earmarks that nonprofits have long counted on.

“This decision out of Capitol Hill has unintended, far-reaching consequences that will impact the millions of people and thousands of communities we serve,” wrote the charity executives in a letter to House leaders Thursday. The letter was addressed to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) and their colleagues. Its signatories included CEOs of the following organizations:

• Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (Artis Stevens)
• Boys & Girls Clubs of America (James L. Clark)
• Catholic Charities USA (Kerry Alyis Robinson)
• Feeding America (Claire Babineaux-Fontenot)
• Girls Inc. (Stephanie J. Hull)
• Goodwill Industries International (Steven C. Preston)
• Habitat for Humanity International (Jonathan Reckford)
• Lutheran Services in America (Alesia Frerichs)
• United Way Worldwide (Angela F. Williams)
• YMCA of the USA (Suzanne McCormick)
• YWCA USA (Margaret Mitchell)

The HUD Economic Development Initiative targeted by the earmark rule “is one of the few sources of funding that organizations like ours can secure for the construction, expansion and renovation of our buildings, which in many cases offer the only safe spaces and supportive programming in the communities we serve,” the leaders added.

Eliminating earmarks allowed under the program could jeopardize charitable programs related to early learning and childcare, youth sports and recreation, community health services, affordable housing, and other critical services affecting underserved and vulnerable populations including survivors of domestic violence, according to the letter. It also puts at risk the jobs of 12.5 million nonprofit employees. Nonprofit workers in total make up between 10% and 12% of the U.S. workforce.

Charitable nonprofits have yet to fully recover from COVID even as they struggle to keep up with increased demand for services that increased 71% during the pandemic, the leaders added. To meet this demand, nearly half (48.5%) have had to increase staff workloads at the same time the number of donors has been falling. “As the needs of our neighbors continue to expand, now is not the time to scale back funding that has such positive impacts on communities in your districts,” the leaders wrote.

The rules change enacted by Cole came after he called for eliminating “political” earmarks previously authorized for various LGBTQ+ activist groups to which several House Republicans had objected. In a letter to his colleagues, Cole said the changes would “ensure projects are consistent with the community development goals of the federal program.” Tim Delaney, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, later responded with a statement decrying attempts “to stop funding from going to a few groups that some representatives may disagree with by issue a blanket ban against funding for all nonprofits.”

Members of the House Appropriations Committee could still vote to reverse the rules change enacted by Cole if he proves unwilling to do so. However, the odds of that happening appear slim since it would require one or more of his House Republican colleagues to join Democrats in voting to override the powerful committee chairman.

Lawmakers seeking funds for nonprofits in their districts could conceivably put in requests through one of 10 other House funding bills where earmarks are still allowed or try doing so on the Senate side. Many turned to the HUD program for this very reason last year after the ban on Labor-HHS-Education earmarks. However, it is unclear how successful they would be in using the same tactic this time since HUD and Labor-HHS-Education have traditionally constituted the largest source of federal dollars received by nonprofits. Most federal funding also comes from bills originating in the House.

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Source From Non Profit Times