Today, U.S. Senators Angus King of Maine and Charles Grassley of Iowa introduced a bill that would increase restrictions on charitable giving. Elise Westhoff, president and CEO of the Philanthropy Roundtable, released the following statement in response to the new legislation—the Accelerating Charitable Efforts (ACE) Act:
“Charitable giving is one of the most powerful tools we have to address some of our nation’s toughest challenges. The best way to expand and encourage giving is to ensure that everyone can participate, but more mandates and regulations on giving will make it harder for all Americans to support the causes they care about and those who are struggling—the people who benefit from charity the most. While we plan to look at this legislation more closely, these types of proposals have been controversial in our sector in the past, and the Roundtable’s main concern is that restricting charitable giving will inevitably suppress giving overall, decrease grantmaking to charities and hurt communities in need. History has shown that the voluntary nature of charitable giving is what has made it most effective in this country. When people have the flexibility to give how, when, and where they choose, it spurs even more generosity and uplifts those who we all wish to help.”
For more on this topic, please see the following:
- United Philanthropy Forum’s coalition letter signed by 80 charitable sector organizations about the need to involve the philanthropic sector in conversations about legislation that could impact donors and the charitable giving vehicles they use to donate to important causes in their communities and across the globe.
- Jeff Hamond on the value of donor-advised funds in Bloomberg Tax. Hamond is a former economic policy director for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and vice president at Van Scoyoc Associates, where he represents a coalition of more than 130 U.S. community foundations.
- Philanthropy Roundtable’s Elise Westhoff in The Wall Street Journal on other proposals to regulate charitable giving.
- Philanthropy Roundtable’s “Free to Give” resource page on the value and power of philanthropic freedom.
