{"id":62155,"date":"2015-06-25T06:48:42","date_gmt":"2015-06-25T12:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=62155"},"modified":"2015-06-25T14:52:17","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T20:52:17","slug":"nm-nonprofits-disclose-your-donors-get-recognition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/06\/nm-nonprofits-disclose-your-donors-get-recognition\/","title":{"rendered":"NM nonprofits: Disclose your donors, get recognition"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:<\/strong>\u00a0Most nonprofits aren’t required by law to disclose their donors even if\u00a0they\u00a0work to influence public policy and politics.<\/p>\n

\"Heath

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

Some engage in\u00a0what the law defines as issue advocacy <\/a>—\u00a0bringing a problem to light. Others overtly\u00a0lobby to pass legislation. And some explicitly get involved in elections.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0law allows most\u00a0donors who fund such efforts to remain secret.<\/p>\n

As I wrote earlier this week, Common Cause New Mexico is lobbying to require greater disclosure in Santa Fe<\/a>. And the organization is demonstrating\u00a0its commitment to sunshine by voluntarily disclosing its own donors who gave $250 or more.<\/p>\n

Common Cause’s national policy requires the release of that information when asked for it. NMPolitics.net made the request. The organization complied.<\/p>\n

Common Cause’s commitment to donor transparency gave me an idea: Why not encourage nonprofits that engage politicians, candidates and citizens\u00a0to voluntarily disclose their funding?<\/p>\n

Donor disclosure\u00a0matters. Many nonprofits have the money to impact\u00a0the public debate. For example, the Hispano Chamber of Commerce de Las Cruces aired pro-wilderness TV ads in 2010 paid for by a secret donor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Such spending\u00a0happens all the time on the left, the right, and in between. The public would benefit from knowing who’s paying for what.<\/p>\n

NMPolitics.net isn’t a nonprofit — we’re a small business — but we work to bring problems to light and do reporting that arguably\u00a0influences legislation and elections. And, in the same spirit of sunshine\u00a0that leads us to fight for government transparency, we disclose\u00a0every donation we receive<\/a> so you can\u00a0hold us to our commitment to treat\u00a0everyone fairly.<\/p>\n

In 2007, the progressive Center for Civic Policy (CCP), which has criticized state legislators in mailers, voluntarily\u00a0released information about its funders<\/a>. At the time,\u00a0the attorney general and secretary of state were trying\u00a0to force CCP to register as a political action committee and release donor info. The government agencies lost that fight\u00a0in federal court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CCP said it was releasing a list of 95 percent of its donors because journalists requested it. Well, I’m publicly requesting again.<\/p>\n

Nonprofits that engage in issue advocacy, lobbying and politicking, I’m asking you to voluntarily release your donor lists. Send them to me at heath@haussamen.com<\/a>. I’ll publish them and recognize you publicly for supporting transparency.<\/p>\n

If you’re already disclosing funding, you can simply point me to the page on your website where you list donors\u00a0and I’ll link to it. If you haven’t posted that information online, you can send it directly to me and I’ll publish it.<\/p>\n

NMPolitics.net discloses all our donors. Common Cause discloses most. I hope others\u00a0will join us in making New Mexico more transparent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NMPolitics.net discloses all our donors. Common Cause discloses most. I hope others will join us in making New Mexico more transparent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[705,113,107,706],"class_list":["post-62155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-money-in-politics","tag-nonprofits","tag-roundhouse","tag-transparency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}