![]() The overall trend suggests that spending by such groups has grown much more rapidly than other forms of political spending in the past decade ( Maguire 2014b). ![]() For example, in the 2012 campaign more than $300 million in dark money was spent by nonprofits directly aimed at political campaigns, despite not legally being identified as such ( Maguire 2014a). Recently a number of such activities have been documented illustrating the increasing role played by nonprofits in politics. Since many nonprofits aim to shape the world toward their conception of the common good or the good of their members, it is only natural that at some point they would consider political means of doing so, whether to further their goals or simply to protect themselves against possible political threats. Whether or not a nonprofit was originally created with the intention of engaging in political activity, it may over time develop political aims. Its approach generated a scandal when it targeted political nonprofits using key words (like “tea party”) in organizations’ names ( Drawbaugh and Dixon 2014). In 2013 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) became concerned about the political activities of nonprofits and sought to initiate reviews, but the agency lacked an effective means of identifying which organizations to review among the many thousands. The vast majority of nonprofits do not need to disclose their donors, and approval procedures have often been pro forma. Legal requirements to disclose vary by the type of activity and the type of nonprofit, and in many cases they are not very strict. Evidence from related activities such as lobbying and campaign contributions suggests that political actors often disclose the minimum allowable by law and may even introduce errors into their reports to make transparency more difficult ( LaPira and Thomas 2014). Since donors to nonprofits need not be disclosed, some have referred to this channel of influence as “dark money.” Failing to observe these cash flows threatens the validity of research on special-interest politics.įormal studies have not been conducted, but there is good reason to think that nonprofits do not adequately disclose their political activities. Anecdotal and journalistic evidence suggests that in the last few years a growing number of donors with political aims have begun channeling donations through nonprofits in lieu of, or in addition to, direct contributions to candidates or PACs. Code-are subject to limits on their political activity, many spend significant amounts of money to promote their political opinions. Although nonprofit organizations- groups organized under section 501(c) of the U.S. Similar examples can be found across the political spectrum. For example, in 2012 the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group, spent twice as much as Planned Parenthood Votes, its PAC counterpart, in the entire 2012 cycle ( Planned Parenthood Federation of America 2012). While political science has focused much of its attention on campaign contributions by political action committees (PACs), recent spending on politically related activity by nonprofits may be greater in magnitude.
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