The American Civil Liberties Union laid off 23 employees, about 7 percent of the organization’s national staff. The cuts affected employees in New York, D.C., California and Wyoming. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero announced the impending reductions internally in a March 26 email to employees, and the affected staffers were notified Monday.
In the email, which was obtained by The Washington Post, Romero cited the need for the ACLU to cut costs.
California has banned state court judges from belonging to the Boy Scouts. The move extends an earlier ban on judges belonging to groups that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, but had an exemption for youth groups. Judges have one year to sever their ties with the Boy Scouts. Judges are already banned from joining lots of groups that other people can belong to. For example, they can't be members of country clubs that don't admit Jewish people or women.
Authorities have revoked the tax-exempt status of nonprofit Blue Shield of California, potentially putting it on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in state taxes each year. The move by the California Franchise Tax Board comes as the state's third-largest health insurer faces fresh criticism over its rate hikes, executive pay and $4.2 billion in financial reserves.
The state quietly stripped the San Francisco insurer of its exemption from California income taxes in August. The company held that since its founding in 1939.
Legislation unveiled by California’s top charity official would add disclosure requirements for paid commercial fundraisers and extend the statute of limitations from five years to 10 years in cases of misconduct. Attorney General Kamala Harris and Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin unveiled Assembly Bill 556. Current regulations in the Golden State allow third parties to solicit funds from donors without disclosing whether a portion of the gift would be diverted to a paid company by establishing their operations as “fundraising counsel” instead of “commercial fundraisers.”
Providing data on a charity’s impact doesn’t necessarily translate into more gifts from prior donors, says a new report. Freedom From Hunger sent direct-mail appeals to its supporters, which all included narrative stories about how it benefited individuals. Some also included scientific data on the impact of the charity’s work.
Donors who had given $100-plus in the past were more likely to give again when they encountered the data on the charity’s impact, but donors who had given less than $100 were actually less likely to donate when the appeal included the data.
The case of Jahi McMath, the 13-year-old girl who was declared brain-dead after a tonsillectomy at Children's Hospital Oakland, is now the centerpiece of a political fundraising effort aimed at lifting California's $250,000 cap for pain and suffering awards in medical malpractice cases.
Consumer Watchdog, a Southern California nonprofit that has teamed up with the state's trial lawyers on a proposed November ballot initiative to lift the limit, just sent out a mailer to supporters saying, "Hospitals like Children's actually have an incentive to let children like Jahi die."
