COMMENTARY: Many nonprofits in New Mexico apparently aren’t in a hurry to respond to my call for transparency by revealing their donors.
Heath Haussamen
I recently asked nonprofits that work to influence public policy and politics in New Mexico to voluntarily release donor lists. As I’ve written, Common Cause and Think New Mexico already had transparent systems in place.
From most, though, the response has been silence.
Claudia Anderson of Farmington took at stab at explaining the reason in a discussion on Facebook.
“It’s sad and in a way pointless to fail to list donors,” she wrote, “but these groups are under the impression that they will get more money this way, or their major donors don’t want their names tied to the donation for business reasons.”
Anderson was skeptical (perhaps appropriately so, given the results thus far) about my call for voluntary transparency of donations that the law allows to remain secret.
“Heath, I love you, but ever heard of Don Quixote?” Anderson asked.
Debate about disclosure
There are many who think nonprofits should reveal donors. Carol Miller of Ojo Sarco, who has worked with nonprofits and run for public office, said these days she only works with organizations that require full transparency of their finances.
“Most of us have seen how mitote begins when someone makes an accusation about how much someone makes, who donated what, and how much something costs,” Miller wrote. “Too many organizations have been destroyed from within by misinformation. If a donor requires that a donation be made anonymously, the organization must have clear and public principles about what types of donations it will accept without public disclosure under very limited circumstances.”
Not everyone agreed that nonprofits should reveal names of all donors, even if they’re involved in politics.
“Major donors should be named,” Michael LaTorra of Las Cruces wrote on Facebook. “That is to say, people of wealth who could not get fired from their jobs by employers who disagree with them.”
I questioned how we could distinguish between those who have to disclose and those who don’t — and whether such a distinction would be upheld by the courts. LaTorra suggested disclosure could be based on income and worth.
“We need to simultaneously protect the ‘little guy’ from retribution while holding the ‘big guy’ accountable,” LaTorra wrote.
Gail D. Goodman of Los Lunas thought LaTorra had a “good point.”
“I never thought of the issue advocacy possibly being a liability at one’s place of employment,” she said. I asked if it was different than donating to a political campaign — which in New Mexico requires disclosure for donations over $100 — and she said she didn’t know.
“Is being a Republican or Democrat or Libertarian equivalent to being pro-gay, anti-X (Israel, Islam, abortion, whatever highly volatile issues are out there)?” she asked. “There are a lot of really emotional and maybe irrational causes that people get very worked up over. So a superior at work knowing about someone’s private — I guess that’s the word — private values… is that a good thing?”
An example
Jerry Glen Wagoner of Las Cruces said he believes nonprofits and groups involved in politics should disclose donors. He name two prominent organizations — one that pushed last year to raise the minimum wage in Las Cruces, and one that has pushed for the recall of some city councilors there.
New Mexico Comunidades en Acción y de Fé (CAFé) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and led the charge for the minimum wage increase last year. It hasn’t disclosed its funding sources publicly in the past.
Close the Cafe, an anonymously run Facebook group, aims to combat the efforts of CAFé and the progressive movement in Las Cruces. The group ran billboards last year attacking CAFé. Those ads stated they were paid for by the Southern New Mexico Business Coalition, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit.
Close the Cafe may be closely tied to New Mexicans for a Better Tomorrow, a political action committee that led the effort to recall some councilors. State law requires that group, as a PAC, to disclose all donors over $100. Among the PAC’s funders is the Southern New Mexico Business Coalition, the same group that paid for Close the Cafe’s billboards. The business coalition doesn’t publish a list of donors on its website.
Here’s why Wagoner said he wants to know about these nonprofits’ funding: “CAFé pushed for an increased minimum wage, which increased my costs! I need to know who supported them. Close the Cafe supported removing councilmen from office. Who supported them?”
I’ll leave it at that for now. We’ll see if any nonprofits other than Common Cause and Think New Mexico choose to reveal donors.
One final note: As I’ve disclosed in the past, I’m dating CAFé’s executive director. Learn more about how I handle situations that involve writing about CAFé here. And for the record, yes, my call for nonprofit disclosure extends to CAFé just like it includes the Southern New Mexico Business Coalition.