Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Downtown Greensboro Inc. Caught In The Act

From GPAC2012:

"Charge to the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro:

The Greensboro City Council asked The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro to convene a task force that will study the benefits of constructing a new state-of-the-art performing arts center. The task force is a citywide body representing a number of groups including leaders and volunteers from the arts, business and foundation communities. The city has charged the task force with:

* Creating an open, candid and constructive dialogue around the needs of a performing arts center;
* Creating an economic impact report and a feasibility analysis of a downtown facility; and
* Exploring using private investment to complement public resources"


But the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro appears to have gone beyond their charge. According to Federal statute 501(c)(4) propaganda is an illegal activity for non profits. (I assume there's some sort of exception for non profit political action committees.) According to definition:

"Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. Propaganda is usually repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the desired result in audience attitudes."


So what did they do? The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro appears to have enlisted another Greensboro non profit, DGI, to start a propaganda campaign known as "Talk it up! to "enlist ambassadors to promote building a performing arts center in downtown." in what appears to be a violation of Federal non profit statutes.

Is Susan Schwartz unaware that she heads a non profit and that non profits are prohibited from engaging in propaganda? Or does she and Ed Wolverton simply believe the law does not pertain to them.

Continue to page 20. Bill Knight On The Greensboro Chamber Of Commerce.

5 comments:

  1. The Community Foundation did not ENLIST DGI. DGI initiated TALK IT UP after the city council said they wanted a new performing arts center and prefered a downtown location.TALK IT UP is an educational program to promote the logical reasons for locating GPAC downtown. It is totally consistent with DGI's mission of enhancing and improving the city center. Talk it up is privately funded and violates no laws. Billy, you could have simply asked,but then you would'nt have been able to use words like "propaganda"
    "violate","appears" in your slopppy attempt to smear good people who work hard for their community.

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  2. Another Anonymous Coward stands up for what is right.

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  3. It is illegal for non profits to attempt to influence voters no matter the source of the money they spend.

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  4. Not true. Nonprofits can do all manner of things. Karl Rove's super PAC is a nonprofit, and it's obviously trying (legally) to influence voters.

    What you probably mean is that tax-exempt entities (like churches and synagogues) have to be careful about their role in campaigns. That's true, but even there, they can engage in issue advocacy and retain their tax-exempt status. What they can't do is support partisan causes like parties or candidates. Temple Emanuel's public opposition to Amendment One wasn't a problem from that perspective.

    And of course any tax-exempt nonprofit can do whatever it wants if it doesn't mind losing its tax-exempt status.

    In any case, many (most?) nonprofits aren't tax-exempt.

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  5. Andrew, the links I posted are to NC state laws and it really reads like their efforts are illegal.

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