By Flickr user talkradionews
As the Presidential election in the United States draws closer, people who work at nonprofits are naturally interested. Many nonprofit organizations may have a real stake in the outcome, since nonprofits' programs are linked in a wide variety of ways to the activities of the federal government.
It's important to remember that charitable nonprofits in the US are simply forbidden from doing anything with the goal of affecting the outcome of any election, whether for President or for
dog catcher. That rule is pretty widely understood. Still, in every election cycle there are complaints that one or another organization has stepped over the line, and the IRS takes such complaints seriously. Even if they turn out to have been groundless, answering their questions can be time consuming, expensive, and stressful. Best just to stand well clear of election excitement and stick to the work that gives meaning to the organization day after day, year after year.
A relatively new cause for concern is the fact that the internet has become such an important part of many nonprofits' work. If your organization's site leads a web surfer to a directly partisan one, that's when you'll be in trouble. The IRS has just issued a directive on the subject for the officials who investigate complaints. It gives guidance on how to assess whether the rules against participating in campaigning have been broken. The key sentence in the directive reads, "where the facts and circumstances suggest that a section 501(c)(3) organization is using a link between Web sites...to indirectly communicate a message that could well be a violation of the law were it done directly, EO will pursue the case."
You can download the two-page
PDF of the directive here. Web developers and policy staff of organizations that work in politically sensitive areas may want to take a little extra time between now and November to read up on this topic and prevent any appearance of involvement in the election on a charitable nonprofit's website.
This entry is by Put, who runs the Nonprofit FAQ.
