Charitable giving laws keep funds out of the hands of WA nonprofits | Opinion
A child or family should not have to wait for healing because charitable dollars are waiting in an investment account.
I have sat in rooms with caregivers trying to keep their children stable, themselves mentally afloat, while navigating trauma, housing stress, school challenges, and mental health needs all at the same time. What stands out to me is not a lack of community care. It is the delay between resources existing and resources actually reaching people.
As a foster care survivor, now a MSW student, psycholegal counselor, educator and founder of You Grow Girl!, a Washington State nonprofit, I have watched impactful nonprofits rooted in community stretch every dollar they have to keep programs alive. These are the same nonprofits families trust because they are authentically rooted. They understand cultural realities, build relationships that don’t feel transactional, and have representation providing the services and leading. Yet they are also the nonprofits to be overlooked by large philanthropic systems.
Right now, charitable giving laws allow enormous amounts of money to sit in donor-advised funds and private foundations for years before reaching working nonprofits. While that happens, rooted nonprofits are holding food drives, paying staff late, racking up operational debt, reducing services and trying to respond to the never-ending behavioral health crises with limited support and delayed contract funding.
Congress has an opportunity to address part of this problem through the proposed Accelerating Charitable Efforts (ACE) Act. The bill would encourage charitable funds to move into communities faster instead of remaining parked indefinitely. That matters. Communities should not have to wait while wealth grows tax-free in financial accounts.
But moving money faster is only part of the solution.
We also need to ask where that money is going. Too often, large nonprofits with development teams and grant-writing departments receive the majority of funding, while rooted community-based nonprofits are often invisible and struggle to even complete the application process. The nonprofits closest to the pain are not always closest to the funding.
That can change.
Jamila Coleman is a master of social work administration and policy practice student at the School of Social Work at the University of Washington.