NONPROFIT
Vermont’s charitable organizations heal, nourish, connect and employ. And, increasingly, they worry.
MARGINS
THOMAS JAMES
14 FEATURE
SEVEN DAYS
06.20.18-06.27.18
SEVENDAYSVT.COM
BY PAUL H E INTZ
When Christine Graham joined the nonprofit world in 1969, “The vast majority of community organizations that we have now simply didn’t exist,” she recalled. Churches, Grange halls and fire companies had long brought Vermonters together to help one another. But it would be years before the Vermont Land Trust, the Vermont Foodbank and the Vermont Community Foundation would spring up and begin to reshape the state. “In the old days,” said Graham, a fundraising consultant who has spent most of her career in the field, “there was a general sense that ‘nonprofit’ means nobody gets paid to work there and the budget is by definition scarcity and disaster all the time.” In the half century since, the nonprofit world didn’t just expand; “it grew up,” said Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, who joined the Vermont Arts Council staff in 1970 and has since led or advised many more nonprofits. “There’s been a healthy professionalization of the sector.” No longer just networks of neighbors, nonprofits are often complex organizations with experienced staff and engaged boards, tackling some of the state’s most vexing problems. And though they are, by definition, designed to make a difference — not a profit — they have become an enormous part of Vermont’s economy. According to their most recent Internal Revenue Service filings — mostly from 2015 and 2016 — the state’s 6,044 federally recognized nonprofits reported annual revenue of $6.8 billion and assets of $13.2 billion. As recently as 2012, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the state’s 501c3s employed nearly 18 percent of Vermont’s workforce. By some estimates, Vermont boasts more nonprofits per capita than any other state in the union. “Nonprofits are a big part of the economy anywhere you go,” said Andy Robinson, an industry consultant who lives in Plainfield and advises clients throughout the country. “But it’s even bigger in Vermont.” According to Graham and McCullochLovell, that’s a legacy of the demographic changes Vermont experienced in the 1970s and ’80s, when artists and idealists flooded the state. “I think people came to Vermont looking for a lifestyle,” Graham said. “They made their communities the kind of places they wanted to live in.” In the years since, the nonprofit sector has been remarkably resilient. During the Great Recession, when for-profits and the public sector pulled back, Vermont nonprofits expanded, according to Brice McKeever, a research associate at the Washington, D.C.based Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy. From 2005 to 2015, revenue
at Vermont nonprofits grew by nearly 48 percent, compared to 39 percent nationally. “When giving was tough overall, Vermont was seeing pretty stable growth during that period,” McKeever said. These public-private hybrids, funded by the wealthy and the state, have in recent de-
ASKED WHO IN STATE GOVERNMENT WAS IN CHARGE OF ADVOCATING FOR NONPROFIT INTERESTS, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE MIKE SCHIRLING CONFESSED,
“I DON’T KNOW!”
‘God Bless the Wealthiest Vermonters’
Seven Days’ “Give and Take” series analyzes Internal Revenue Service data submitted by the 6,044 federally recognized nonprofit organizations based in Vermont as of May. The paper looked most closely at the 1,873 organizations that submit detailed Form 990 tax filings in a digital format. Certain nonprofits — including churches, semi-governmental entities and those with annual revenue of $50,000 or less — offer up more limited information. Though these filings provide a thorough look into an organization’s finances, they’re not always error free.
FEATURE 15
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METHODOLOGY
SEVEN DAYS
NONPROFIT MARGINS
FRATS ARE NONPROFITS, TOO ....... SOME NONPROFIT EXECS MAKE BIG BUCKS ........ HOW TO START A NONPROFIT..............
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The breadth of Vermont’s nonprofit ecosystem is so great that it’s difficult to make generalizations about its denizens. “The nonprofit sector is almost an artificial construct,” said Vermont Community Foundation president and CEO Dan Smith, whose organization advises philanthropists and steers $12 million a year to charitable endeavors. “You can find institutional nonprofits like colleges and universities that have very different challenges than the two-person nonprofit that’s hosting an after-school program in Sharon.” At one end of the spectrum is the University of Vermont Medical Center, which reported $1.29 billion in revenue in its latest IRS filing, more than 7,800 employees and 21 execs making more than half a million dollars a year. (See story on page 18.) At the other are groups like the Friends of West Rutland Town Hall, which claimed $1,156 in revenue and zero employees. In the middle of the spectrum is an array of organizations that entertain us (Weston Playhouse Theatre), inform us (Vermont Public Radio), educate us (Montshire Museum of Science), rescue us (Caledonia-Essex Area Ambulance Service), care for us (Brattleboro
Vermont has eight times as many nonprofits as it has dairy farms — and unlike the milk industry, the state’s charitable sector just keeps growing. Vermont’s 6,044 nonprofits reported $6.8 billion in revenue and $13.2 billion in assets in their latest Internal Revenue Service filings. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that nearly 18 percent of the state’s workers are employed by 501c3s. Though they’re undergirded by generous tax breaks and government expenditures, these organizations rarely make the news — save for the occasional embezzlement scandal or multimillion-dollar donation. In its “Give and Take” series, Seven Days is examining the state’s IN THIS ISSUE: nonprofit ecosystem, from tiny local charities to one of the biggest PAGE 16 enterprises in the state: the $1.29 billion University of Vermont Medical Center. Yep, it’s PAGE 18 a nonprofit. What do these mostly tax-exempt organizations have in PAGE 23 common? What does their proliferation mean for Vermont? To find out, Seven Days digital editor Andrea Suozzo built a database of newly available digital Form 990s that many Vermont nonprofits file with the IRS. Our news reporters looked for patterns and aberrations. Then they started making phone calls. Seven Days is sharing those findings over the course of several weeks. Look for multiple stories in each issue and read the entire “Give and Take” series online at sevendaysvt.com/nonprofits. You can also suggest a story on this web page or just leave us a voicemail at 802-488-5074.
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cades become a sort of shadow government. They educate the young, treat the ill, conserve the environment, and feed and house the poor. “Nonprofits are essentially paid, or underpaid, to do work that the government has decided to delegate,” said Lauren-Glenn Davitian, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Common Good Vermont. And yet, Robinson complains, government officials rarely go to bat for the sector the way they do for the dairy, ski and captive insurance industries. “Why are nonprofits seen as the stepchild?” he asked. “Why aren’t we taken more seriously?” Unlike Connecticut, which boasts a cabinet-level position focused on nonprofits, Vermont has no such point person. Asked who in state government was in charge of advocating for nonprofit interests, Secretary of Commerce Mike Schirling confessed, “I don’t know!” There’s a similar lack of oversight. Vermont nonprofits must register with the Secretary of State’s Office and, to attain tax-exempt status, the IRS. (See story on page 23.) But the Vermont Attorney General’s Office employs just one lawyer charged with ensuring their compliance with state law, and the IRS rarely conducts audits. Journalists, too, tend to give the sector short shrift, even though some of the state’s top news organizations are themselves nonprofits. Reporters cover the occasional capital campaign, organizational implosion or embezzlement case, but rarely do they provide the sustained attention — and scrutiny — that nonprofits merit, given the public dollars they receive and the tax advantages they enjoy.
Seven Days aims to address that with a new series on Vermont’s nonprofit economy called “Give and Take.” Aided by a searchable, sortable database of IRS filings that the newspaper built for the project, our reporters have combed through the Form 990s that many tax-exempt charitable organizations must submit each year. Within those filings is a wealth of information that, until recently, was not easily accessed by journalists and the public. In the coming weeks, Seven Days will use that data to take readers inside Vermont nonprofits, with stories examining their impact, challenges, leadership, compensation, power, tactics and funding. These stories examine the “give and take” of public policies that advantage certain organizations charged with advancing the greater good. “My experience in Vermont is that most organizations are well run, they’re functional and they’re effective. There are some that are dysfunctional and a lot that are operating below capacity,” Robinson said. “To me, that’s the headline: We have a large group of nonprofits that are, by and large, good at what they do. But they could be better.”
advantages, 501c3s benefit from the most. They are exempt from the federal corporate income tax and a Area Hospice), inspire us (Special Olympics Vermont) host of state taxes, including, for the most part, those and remind us (Vermont Folklife Center). on income, property, sales and use. According to a 2017 So what do they all have in common? Each is a report by the legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office and the “public benefit corporation,” defined in Vermont Department of Taxes, Vermont nonprofits avoided statute as one “organized for a public or charitable $18.6 million in state income tax payments in 2014 and purpose” — educational, religious, horticultural or one roughly $73 million in state property taxes in 2016. of a number of other listed categories. The Secretary The latter included a nearly $12 million state property of State’s Office counts 7,317 registered public benefit tax exemption for the University of Vermont and anor mutual benefit corporations other $12 million for religious based in Vermont. (There are institutions. 11,244 domestic for-profit State lawmakers have occorporations.) Some of these casionally attempted to rein in have also been granted 501c3 these giveaways, but they’ve status by the federal governsucceeded only once in recent ment. That means they are years — when, in 2016, they tax-exempt charitable organieliminated a property tax break zations designed to benefit the for college fraternities and sopublic interest, not individual rorities. (See story below.) shareholders. Now the same politicians are According to Seven Days’ tinkering with the tax breaks database of IRS filings, 4,550 nonprofit donors enjoy. Since L AUR E N- GLE NN D AVI T I A N Vermont entities were desig1917, Americans have been able nated 501c3s. Those included to deduct charitable contribu303 private foundations, which are typically endowed tions from their federal tax bills, thereby reducing by wealthy families or corporations and distribute their taxable income. Because higher income is taxed investment income to other nonprofits. Among them? at higher rates, the deduction benefits the wealthy far The Stiller Family Foundation, the Ben & Jerry’s more than the middle class. Foundation, and the Pizzagalli Foundation. In 2016, according to the Vermont Department of In addition to 501c3s, Vermont hosts another 1,494 Taxes, only 28 percent of taxpayers itemized their defederally recognized nonprofits that receive fewer tax ductions; the rest were better off taking the fixed, stanbenefits. Those include 501c4 social welfare organiza- dard deduction option. According to the IRS, those tions, such as the Vermont Right to Life Committee; who do itemize contributed $289 million to nonprofits 501c5 labor groups, such as the Vermont State in 2015. More than half of that, $157 million, came Employees’ Association; and 501c6 business leagues, from those who earned more than $200,000. such as the Vermont Ski Areas Association. Just 450 ultra-rich Vermonters, who made more While these other nonprofits enjoy some tax
Nonprofit Margins « P.15
TOP 10
06.20.18-06.27.18
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largest contributions to Vermont nonprofits from 2014 to 2018 Donor
Recipient
Amount
1
Robert and Helen Larner
University of Vermont College of Medicine
$66M
2
Barry and Wendy Rowland
Burr and Burton Academy
$20M
3
Robert and Helen Larner
University of Vermont
$19.7M
4
Gund family
University of Vermont
$6M
5
Martin and Michele Cohen
University of Vermont Foundation
$5M
Helen
Bennington College
$5M
6
Jack and Shirley Silver
University of Vermont Foundation
$5M
Ronald Read
Brattleboro Memorial Hospital
$4M
9
Bob and Holly Miller
University of Vermont College of Medicine
$3M
10
Daniel and Carole Burack
University of Vermont
$2M
7
SEVEN DAYS
8
16 FEATURE
Frankenthaler Foundation
Source: The Chronicle of Philanthropy
NONPROFITS ARE ESSENTIALLY PAID, OR UNDERPAID,
TO DO WORK THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS DECIDED TO DELEGATE.
Tax-Deductible Pledges: Frats Are Nonprofits, Too BY K ATIE J IC K L ING
I
t’s not just animal shelters, churches and food shelves. The host of that kegger you crashed in college might have been a nonprofit. About 20 fraternities and sororities are registered as tax-exempt organizations in Vermont, recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as social clubs for “pleasure and recreation.” But it’s a selective bunch. Only Greek organizations that own property are formal nonprofits; the designation provides the structure to manage the property and allows the groups to skip paying federal income tax on rent or interest, said Mitch Pearl, a partner at Langrock, Sperry & Wool law firm. At the University of Vermont, 10 fraternities and sororities own homes and are registered as nonprofits — about half the total number of Greek
organizations at the university, said Pat Brown, director of student life. The remaining fraternities are student groups under the umbrella of a national fraternal organization but have no official standing with the state or feds, Brown said. Three UVM frats are currently suspended for bad behavior — two for several years; one in perpetuity. Tax exemption might not seem compatible with the party-house stereotype, conceded Josh Lagerquist, a rising senior and president of Alpha Gamma Rho at UVM. But AGR, which considers itself an agricultural fraternity, is different. Lagerquist joined as a firstyear student because his frat brothers “weren’t the elitist-stereotype men, and they weren’t the idiot
AMOUNT DONATED TO CHARITY (IN MILLIONS)
VERMONT PHILANTHROPY IN 2015 $80,983,000
80 $70,795,000
60
TOTAL NUMBER OF VERMONT DONORS:
$61,058,000 $55,930,000
64,970
40
TOTAL AMOUNT DONATED:
0
$289M
$20,582,000
20 Donors: 31,400
Donors: 24,240
Donors: 7,800
Donors: 1,080
Donors: 450
$0-$99K
$100-$199K
$200-$499K
$500-$999K
$1M+
INCOME LEVELS
= 1,000 donors
These data come only from the 30 percent of Vermonters who itemize their donations, not from those who took the standard deduction. Source: Internal Revenue Service
than $1 million apiece, contributed $81 million to nonprofits. Some gifts are off the charts. In the past five years, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Vermont organizations received at least 30 donations worth a million dollars or more, totaling $159 million. Among them was a trio of eight-figure contributions: Robert and Helen Larner gave $66 million to the UVM College of Medicine and $19.7 million to the university itself. Barry and Wendy Rowland contributed $20 million to Burr and Burton Academy, an independent high school in Manchester. “God bless the wealthiest Vermonters,” said fundraising consultant Tere Gade. “They are being very generous to the nonprofit community.”
As Vermont nonprofits have “grown up,” they’ve encountered new and unexpected challenges that threaten their finances and, sometimes, their ability to carry out their missions. The most recent of these are changes to the federal and state tax codes that nonprofit leaders fear could curb the generosity of the wealthiest donors — and deprive their organizations of critical funding. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which President Donald Trump signed into law last December, nearly doubled the standard deduction, from $6,350 to $12,000 for single filers and from $12,700 to $24,000 for married couples. Analysts expect that many taxpayers
The Alpha Gamma Rho house at the University of Vermont
» P.27 KATIE JICKLING
06.20.18-06.27.18 SEVEN DAYS FEATURE 17
alum Chris Lapierre, who noted “it’s giant and old and costs a lot to maintain.” That same year, they got involved in a discussion that played out in the state legislature about whether the public good created by fraternities and sororities outweighed what they didn’t pay in taxes. The property tax exemption for Greek organizations was set to expire unless lawmakers voted to preserve it. Members and alumni made their pitch in Montpelier, donning suits and ties to expound on their philanthropic efforts in the community. In the end, the frats failed to make the case: Lawmakers didn’t take action, allowing the exemption to sunset. For AGR, the impact was substantial, according to Lagerquist. Previously, the frat was partially exempt from property taxes and paid about $11,000 annually. Now, it pays nearly $31,000 a year in taxes, which go to the city and the state education fund. The jump “is pretty extensive,” Lagerquist said. “It hurts.” All told, the houses pay $216,000 in taxes, according to City Assessor John Vickery. That includes the suspended frats, which are still getting billed. ! Contact:
[email protected]
NONPROFIT MARGINS
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Animal House guys,” he said, referring to the 1978 comedy featuring fraternal misdeeds. Last year, he said, the group volunteered more than 500 hours for the UVM Children’s Hospital, Cochran’s Ski Area and Camp Kesem, an organization that helps kids whose parents have cancer. The frat, which owns a stately brick building with a cupola on South Prospect Street in Burlington, actually operates under two nonprofits. Students run a 501c7, the federal designation for social clubs. They collected $153,000 in membership dues and spent $139,000 on meals and programs, according to the group’s 2016 IRS filing. A second organization, a 501c3 run by alumni, manages the house, which is valued at $1.16 million. It serves as the fraternity’s de facto landlord. Having separate entities protects AGR’s wealthy alumni brothers from liability in the case of an accident — or a bacchanal, said Pearl. “If the fraternity gets sued, they’re not on the hook,” he explained. In 2016 the group, called the Alpha Gamma Rho Alumni Association, spent most of the $65,000 it earned from rent and donations on taxes and fixes to the house, according to the group’s treasurer and AGR
‘Let’s Not Destabilize the Shelters’
who used to itemize their deductions — particularly in the upper-middle class — will now opt for the standard deduction, thereby reducing their incentive to donate to nonprofits. In Vermont, according to Tax Commissioner Kaj Samsom, the number of itemizers could drop from 28 percent to 9 percent. “That’s a dramatic reduction,” he said. “Maybe you have less reason to give to charity now, at both the federal and state level.” To restore the incentive to give, in February Samsom proposed the creation of a 5 percent charitable tax credit. Unlike the current approach, which only benefits itemizers, the credit would be available to all Vermonters, and it would be worth the same — dollar for dollar — for those in the lowest tax bracket as those in the highest. Filers who gave $100 to charity would receive a $5 state tax credit, while those who gave $100,000 would get a $5,000 credit. “On its own, a credit is always more progressive in nature than a deduction,” Samsom said. “This will open up a tax incentive for everyone to give a little bit.” State legislators generally supported the proposal, but the Vermont House proposed capping the credit at $500 — which is 5 percent of $10,000 in charitable donations. Rep. Janet Ancel (D-Calais), who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, argued that the money saved would be better spent reducing the tax burden on Social Security recipients and increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit. “That is a tremendous boon to working families,” she said of the latter. “It’s the best anti-poverty program we have.” The House later compromised with the Senate and settled on a $1,000 limit, meaning that those who give
Overcompensating? In Vermont, some nonprofit execs make big bucks B Y PAUL HEI NT Z
06.20.18-06.27.18 SEVEN DAYS 18 FEATURE
THOMAS JAMES
SEVENDAYSVT.COM
W
hen Tom Lovett moved to the Northeast Kingdom in 1984 to teach high school English, he wasn’t expecting a six-figure salary. “I come from a family of teachers,” he said. “I did not get into this profession for any kind of financial benefit.” But after 34 years at St. Johnsbury Academy, including 17 as its headmaster, Lovett has become the highest paid secondary school employee in Vermont. According to the institution’s most recent publicly available filing with the Internal Revenue Service, Lovett earned nearly $287,000 in 2016, plus $72,000 in benefits. That’s more than twice what Vermont’s highest-paid public school principal makes, and it even exceeds the $223,000 in wages and benefits that Vermont State Colleges System Chancellor Jeb Spaulding earns to run four colleges and universities. But St. Johnsbury Academy’s executive compensation pales in comparison to what’s offered at other tax-exempt 501c3 organizations in Vermont. According to a Seven Days database of IRS filings, at least 60 employees of 16 Vermont nonprofits earned more than half a million dollars during the most recent year for which records are available. (Only nine were women.) The filings show that at least 81 Vermont nonprofits paid at least one staff member more than $200,000 in 2015 or 2016. The high earners include leaders of Vermont’s top hospitals and colleges, which are designated nonprofits under federal law despite having budgets in the hundreds of millions — or even billions — of dollars. At the top of the list is Dr. John Brumsted, CEO of the University of Vermont Medical Center and its network of six regional hospitals. In 2015, Brumsted earned nearly $2.2 million, including $979,000 in base pay, $492,000 in bonuses, and hundreds of thousands in retirement contributions and payouts, and health and life insurance premiums. Other well-compensated executives hail from smaller or more obscure institutions. The CEO of the Holstein Association USA, a Brattleboro organization devoted to the bovine breed, earned $309,000 in pay and benefits in 2016. The president
of the Woodstock Foundation, which operates Billings Farm & Museum, made $301,000. And the executive director of the Keewaydin Foundation, a summer camping organization on Lake Dunmore, earned $201,000. Most of their peers make quite a bit less. According to Seven Days’ database of IRS filings, leaders of Vermont nonprofits earned an average of $75,312 in 2015 or 2016. Nonprofit employees earned an average wage of $23.83 an hour, or $49,566 a year, according to the advocacy group Common Good Vermont. An older but far more comprehensive study by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated that, in 2012, Vermont nonprofit workers made an average annual wage of $44,882. That was roughly on par with the $44,540 that all Vermont workers averaged that year. At some nonprofits, the gulf between highest- and lowest-paid employees is vast. According to UVM Medical Center spokesman Michael Carrese, the hospital’s starting wage for cleaning and food service workers is $11.79 an hour. Brumsted’s monetary compensation — excluding benefits — of $1.47 million works out to an hourly wage of about $707 — or 60 times what a janitor at his hospital might make. Sen. Chris Pearson (P/D-Chittenden) says he’s “outraged” by such disparities. “This makes me angry,” he said. “I think it’s part of the gross inequality that is pervasive through our economy.” Last August, the Green Mountain Care Board, a state health care regulator, released a list of nearly 70 Vermont hospital employees who made more than $400,000 in 2016.
“We thought it was important to provide transparency, especially to board members,” said GMCB chair Kevin Mullin. “We want the best doctors and administrators, but we don’t want to pay too much for them.” Publication of that list prompted Pearson to introduce legislation in the Vermont Senate last winter capping compensation at nonprofits that receive more than $1 million in state funding. Such entities would be allowed to pay their employees only as much as the governor of Vermont — roughly $166,000 in 2017 — unless they received a waiver. “I wanted to spark a conversation about public dollars that flow into our nonprofit sector,” said Pearson, whose bill died in committee. “I wanted to point out that we, as a state, actually contribute to [income inequality] as a buyer of services — for instance, in the health care arena, where Medicaid dollars are contributing to excessive salaries in our biggest health care facility.”
‘Reasonable and Not Excessive’
Many leaders in Vermont’s nonprofit community disagree with Pearson’s logic. “It seems to me that if you want the best and the brightest to run nonprofits, they should be compensated as well as those in the private sector,” said fundraising consultant Tere Gade, who previously worked at Champlain College and Vermont Public Radio. Among the institutions that would have been affected by Pearson’s legislation are Vermont’s independent schools, which
receive public dollars through the state’s extensive voucher system. Roughly $12.2 million of St. Johnsbury Academy’s $31.9 million annual budget comes from state sources, according to school spokesperson Dennise Casey. In addition to Lovett, the heads of five other independent schools made more than $200,000 in wages and benefits, according to their latest filings: Vermont Academy ($268,000), Green Mountain Valley School ($260,000), Stratton Mountain School ($247,000), Burr and Burton Academy ($229,000) and the Putney School ($204,000). At St. Johnsbury Academy, a total of seven staffers made six-figure salaries in 2016, including associate headmaster John Cummings, who earned $156,000 in pay and $46,000 in benefits. Starting teachers with no experience make $31,850, Casey said. According to Vermont Principals’ Association executive director Jay Nichols, most public school principals earn between $60,000 and $120,000 a year. The size of the paycheck typically depends on the size of the school, the scope of a principal’s responsibilities, and the number of days per year he or she works. “Many public school principals are very, very underpaid,” said Nichols, adding that he does not begrudge independent school headmasters who make more. Though the IRS requires nonprofits to disclose the salaries of certain key employees, some leaders are hesitant to discuss pay. Reached by phone last month, St. Johnsbury Academy board president Jay Wright grew hostile when asked about Lovett’s compensation.
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FEATURE 19
OVERCOMPENSATING?
MATTRESSES
06.20.18-06.27.18
then-CEO Christine Hallquist earned $228,000 in pay and $30,000 in benefits in 2016 — big money by Vermont standards, but a fraction of the cooperative’s $82 million in revenue. (See sidebar on page 20.) At the other end of the spectrum, a handful of Vermont nonprofits devote more than 15 percent of their annual revenue to compensating a single employee. Those include Grounds for Health, the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation and the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. VAHHS, which lobbies for the state’s hospitals, paid outgoing president Beatrice Grause $349,000 of its $1.9 million in revenue in 2016, before she left for a job in New York. Surely the most lucrative pool job in the state belongs to Charlotte Brynn, a New Zealand native and internationally ranked swimmer. When Burton Snowboards owners Jake and Donna Burton Carpenter built the Swimming Hole in 2001, they hired Brynn to manage the nonprofit aquatic center in Stowe. In 2015, the Stowe Swimmers Foundation paid her $188,000 to run the $1.2 million operation — and give swim lessons. “My role as executive director is to oversee all the operations at the facility, including the building plant,” Brynn explained. Until recently, the Windham Foundation was among the most generous nonprofits in the state. Founded in 1963 by Wall Street banker Dean Mathey, its mission is to preserve the rural character of the southern Vermont town of Grafton. These days, it owns and operates the Grafton Inn and Grafton Village Cheese. The organization, which reported $1.2 million in revenue and $35 million in assets in 2015, paid its last president and CEO, Robert Allen, $317,000 that year. According to board chair Bill Bruett, the foundation brought on the former Vermont Country Store exec to stem mounting losses in its hospitality and dairy operations. “In order to attract someone of that caliber, we had to pay that kind of money,” Bruett said. As recently as 2011, the Windham Foundation paid its board members $22,000 a year and its chair $29,000 — a highly unusual practice among Vermont nonprofits, which rarely compensate board members at all. But as the organization’s endowment dwindled, it gradually scaled back the payments to $5,000 per board member. “The economic reality of the foundation was that we had to look at bringing our costs way down,” said Liz Bankowski, a former board chair who succeeded Allen as president and CEO in 2016. Bankowski did something unusual when she took the job: She demanded a
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“No, that’s not a matter for public disclosure … This is none of your business,” Wright said shortly before hanging up on a Seven Days reporter. Casey later arranged interviews with Lovett and board member Ed Zuccaro, both of whom defended the school’s compensation practices. According to Zuccaro, a local lawyer, the board benchmarks Lovett’s salary to similar institutions throughout New England. The size of St. Johnsbury Academy’s budget and student population — 680 day students and 260 boarders — makes it impossible to compare to other Vermont schools, he argued. “I think what he’s paid is a fair, reasonable compensation,” Zuccaro said of Lovett. “It’s really a 24-7 job.” The Keewaydin Foundation looks after summer campers, not boarding school students. But when it set executive director Pete Hare’s compensation at $201,000, according to board member Marshall Morton, “We looked at what other private school heads were making and what other camp heads were making.” The $5 million operation includes three summer camps — two in Salisbury and one in Canada — and a year-round environmental center. Hare, whose father co-owned Keewaydin until it became a nonprofit in 1982, has directed the boys’ camp since 2001 and run the foundation since 2002. In the latter role, Hare supervises 10 year-round employees and 225 seasonal staffers. He spends much of the off-season raising money and building the foundation’s endowment so that it can offer scholarships to those who can’t afford the eight-week price tag of $9,250. Hare acknowledges that he’s well compensated, but he argues that the camps offer competitive pay to all their employees. “What it leads to is getting good people and getting them to stay for a while,” he said. “That’s why parents send their kids back year after year — because they know we have great staff and leadership.” Keewaydin, St. Johnsbury Academy and other organizations profiled in this story comply with the IRS’ guidelines for setting “reasonable and not excessive” compensation for nonprofit chiefs. The agency recommends that an “independent body” — usually a board-appointed compensation committee — look at comparable salaries at similar institutions and then document the process for the sake of transparency. A key factor is an organization’s size. Nonprofits that pay their leaders a large percentage of their revenue may not be getting a great deal. By that metric, the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, the Howard Center and the Vermont Electric Cooperative are comparatively frugal. Before she left VEC to run for governor,
TOP EARNERS AT VERMONT NONPROFITS Excluding Hospitals, Colleges and Captive Insurance Companies
All Organizations $0
$500K
$1M
$1.5M
JOHN BRUMSTED
$2M
$2.5M
$2,186,275
CEO, University of Vermont Medical Center
MELBOURNE D. BOYNTON
MICHAEL BARNUM
ROBERT D. MONSEY
BENJAMIN ROSENBERG
$650,891
STEPHANIE LANDVATER
$620,976
Orthopedic surgeon, Gifford Medical Center
THOMAS DEE
$620,368
CEO, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center
pay cut. Her $160,000 salary is roughly half of what her predecessor made. “It’s an interesting position for me,” said Bankowski, who served as former governor Madeleine Kunin’s chief of staff and as an executive at Ben & Jerry’s. “If any woman came to me under these circumstances, I would say, ‘What? Are you crazy?’”
DAVID A. DONATH
SEAN P. BRENNAN
$268,491
LEWIS MILFORD
$266,768
Head of school, Vermont Academy
Base and bonus compensation
President/CEO, Clean Energy Group
Benefits and other compensation
DAVID GAVETT
T
Christine Hallquist
James Ehlers
nonprofit execs in the state: She earned $228,000 in pay and $30,000 in benefits in 2016, according to VEC’s latest filing with the Internal Revenue Service. That’s quite a bit more than the Washington Electric Co-op, a similar nonprofit business, paid its general manager, Patricia Richards. She earned $147,000 in pay and $51,000 in benefits in 2016. Then
$259,993
Headmaster emeritus, Green Mountain Valley School Base and bonus compensation
“I had worked for 25 years without a minute off,” Coleman said. “No sabbaticals or nothing.” According to IRS filings, the highest collegiate compensation in 2015 — excluding Coleman’s payout — went to Finney’s successor at Champlain, Donald Laackman ($522,000); Norwich University president Richard Schneider ($506,000); and Saint Michael’s College president John Neuhauser ($503,000). Some nonprofits, including religious organizations, are not required to file disclosure forms with the IRS, so they are not included in Seven Days’ database. Among the exempt are UVM, the Vermont State Colleges System and the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. All three voluntarily agreed to provide comparable data. In 2016, according to spokesman
Brenda Siegel
again, VEC’s $82 million in revenue was more than 10 times WEC’s. And, Hallquist noted, “We’re still paid significantly less than the investor-owned utilities,” such as Green Mountain Power. According to Hallquist, 16 of her cooperative’s 20 highest-paid employees were field workers. She said her salary was only four times that of the co-op’s
Benefits and other compensation
Enrique Corredera, UVM paid eight employees more than $300,000, including Larner College of Medicine dean Frederick Morin ($560,000) and university president Thomas Sullivan ($429,000). Those figures don’t include health insurance or a 10 percent contribution to retirement accounts, capped at $26,500. Sullivan also receives free housing. State college presidents make far less than their counterparts at private institutions. The heads of Northern Vermont University, Castleton University, Vermont Technical College and the Community College of Vermont all make between $151,000 and $175,000, plus health insurance and retirement contributions of around $10,000, according to state colleges spokesperson Tricia Coates. All receive free cars and most receive free housing.
COURTESY OF BRENDA SIEGEL
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retiring president David Finney. According to spokesperson Stephen Mease, the college had agreed to match a post-retirement health care benefit when it hired Finney away from New York University. Upon his departure from Champlain, its board decided to pay out the estimated value of that benefit, to the tune of $700,000. Elizabeth Coleman spent 25 years as president of Bennington College. In June 2013, she stepped down from the $500,000-a-year gig and took a $225,000 post as founding director of the college’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action, according to spokesperson Alex Dery Snider. After two years in that role, Coleman fully retired in 2015 and collected a $500,000 payment for an unused sabbatical she’d been guaranteed in her final contract as president.
FROM E.D. TO GOV? hree of the four Democratic candidates in this year’s gubernatorial race hail from the nonprofit world. The only one who doesn’t is 14-year-old Ethan Sonneborn, who’s not old enough to work. Incumbent Republican Gov. Phil Scott also has experience in the sector: For more than a dozen years, he’s run the annual Wheels for Warmth fundraiser, which resells donated tires and distributes the proceeds to community action agencies. Democratic candidate Christine Hallquist spent two decades at the nonprofit Vermont Electric Cooperative before resigning in February to focus on her gubernatorial campaign. As chief executive officer, a position she held for 13 of those years, Hallquist was one of the highest-paid
$300,937
President, The Woodstock Foundation
FILE: JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR
20 FEATURE
Colleges and universities are some of Vermont’s largest — and highest-compensating — nonprofits. In recent years, two of the state’s biggest payouts went to departing college leaders. In 2014, according to an IRS filing, Champlain College doled out $1.1 million to
$309,038
Executive secretary/CEO, Holstein Association USA
MATTHEW THORSEN
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Docs and Profs
$332,187
President/CEO, World Learning
Source: Internal Revenue Service. All titles, compensation figures and employment statuses are as reported in 2015 or 2016.
Overcompensating? « P.19
$358,963
$348,662
JOHN M. MEYER
$628,137
$400K
BEATRICE GRAUSE
$670,842
ELIZABETH COLEMAN
$350K
$371,455
President, Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems
JOHN MACY
Dir. of Ctr. for Adv. of Public Action, Bennington College
$300K
$354,269
DONALD K. STEINBERG
Past director, Porter Hospital
$250K
ROBERT MILLER
$703,860
Physician, Copley Hospital Inc.
$200K
CEO, Vermont Oxford Network
S.G. NEALE
Physician, North Country Hospital & Health Center
$150K
President/CEO, Vermont State Employees Credit Union
$850,548
Assistant prof. orthopedic rehab, University of Vermont Medical Group
$100K
Headmaster, St. Johnsbury Academy
$970,119
Orthopedic surgeon, Northwestern Medical Center
$50K
THOMAS W. LOVETT
$1,121,987
Chief medical director, Rutland Hospital
$0
JEFFREY D. HORBAR
lowest-paid employee. First-class line worker Gary Young made $163,000 in wages and $43,000 in benefits in 2015, according to a VEC filing. “We’re a lot more equal than any other business,” Hallquist said. Unlike Hallquist, gubernatorial candidate James Ehlers hasn’t quit his day job — as executive director of Lake Champlain International — to hit the campaign trail. He doesn’t plan to, even if he wins the Democratic nomination in August. “They can’t afford to have me leave, and I can’t afford to leave,” he explained. “I don’t sleep much.” The conservation and sporting organization reported $564,000 in revenue to the IRS in 2016. That year, it paid Ehlers $90,000 in wages and $7,500 in benefits. And, in an unusual arrangement, LCI also paid rent to Ehlers.
LOCALLY FAMILYOWNED & OPERATED Experience a true day spa. Vermont Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals, an AFT affiliate, has been locked in contentious contract negotiations with UVM Medical Center for months. “I think they’re all overpaid,” Snell said of the hospital’s top staffers. “It really boils down to the fact that they’re willing to invest at that level but not at the bedside where the work is really getting done.” Asked what would happen if Sen. Pearson’s compensation-limiting legislation became law, Emery-Ginn did not mince words. “I think it would cause us to lose a lot of our senior team,” she said. “I don’t think we’d be able to get anyone of that caliber to replace them. I think it would decimate us.” At least one nonprofit hospital has reined in its executive compensation. The Brattleboro Retreat, which provides mental health and addiction services, paid then-president and CEO Robert Simpson $508,000 in overall compensation in 2014 and $494,000 the next year. His successor, Louis Josephson, made just $402,000 in 2016. (On his way out the door that year, Simpson took another $150,000 in pay and bonuses.) According to board chair Elizabeth Catlin, Josephson subsequently recommended a salary freeze for himself and his executive team in 2017 and 2018. The hospital was facing serious financial pressures, she explained, and the new CEO felt that “accountability starts at the top.” “This is not a group that is passing the buck,” Catlin said of the Retreat’s top administrators. “In a time of financial challenge, they’re not looking to line their own pockets at the expense of the rest of the hospital.” !
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FEATURE 21
founded the annual Southern Vermont Dance Festival in 2013, to help reinvigorate the local economy in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene. “My MO is to turn tragedy into action,” she said. The festival, which Siegel said costs $35,000 to $50,000 a year to produce, is so small that it does not have its own corporate status. For much of its existence, it relied on the nonprofit Downtown Brattleboro Alliance to serve as its fiscal agent. In January, the festival moved to the Arts Council of Windham County. Siegel, who describes herself as “very low-income,” makes most of her money teaching dance and political classes throughout the year. But, she said, “I do very much consider my occupation directing the dance festival, even though I don’t draw a salary.” !
SEVEN DAYS
Around the time he took a job with LCI, Ehlers bought a one-acre Colchester property with a three-bedroom house and a 1,400-square-foot commercial building. Until recently, he said, he lived in the house with his children and now-estranged wife. For the past 15 years, he has leased the commercial space to LCI to use as its headquarters. In 2016, the organization paid Ehlers $15,750 in rent, according to IRS records. Ehlers said his board sets the price, below its market value, and the organization’s lawyers and accountants have vetted the arrangement. “All of this is totally legit and has been scrutinized for years by all of my enemies and adversaries,” he said. For candidate Brenda Siegel, nonprofit work is a labor of love, not a stable source of income. The Brattleboro dance instructor
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VSAC, which provides student loans to Vermonters, pays president and CEO Scott Giles $257,000 and provides $59,000 in benefits, according to the IRS filing of a related organization. Also excluded from the IRS data is Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont. Though registered with the state as a nonprofit, it and other such health insurance companies are not designated 501cs by the federal government. But according to a filing with the state Department of Financial Regulation, its CEO, Don George, made $614,000 in pay and $22,000 in benefits in 2016. The Vermont nonprofits that dole out the most are hospitals, which account for 12 of the 16 institutions that paid at least one employee half a million dollars or more in 2015 or 2016. Twenty-one doctors and administrators at the UVM Medical Center and its associated physicians’ group earned that much, including general counsel Spencer Knapp ($677,000) and lobbyist Theresa Alberghini Dipalma ($524,000). According to Scottie Emery-Ginn, who chairs the UVM Health Network’s board, CEO Brumsted’s base pay is at the 50th percentile of comparable academic hospitals. The board sets financial, operational and quality goals for him. Recent goals, according to Carrese, included integrating the culture at the network’s hospitals and achieving a net operating margin of 4 percent. “If he gets a home run, his compensation can go up to the 65th percentile for total compensation,” Emery-Ginn explained. Brumsted uses a similar system to set pay for the 18 hospital chiefs and administrators who report directly to him. “I do believe we’re paying John fairly for the job he does,” Emery-Ginn said. “Our success is due to him.” Not all of Brumsted’s employees agree. Deb Snell, an intensive care unit nurse and president of the American Federation of Teachers’ Vermont chapter, said the CEO’s salary makes her “nauseous.” The
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How I started a nonprofit B Y K ATIE JI CKL I NG
safety, fostering of national or international amateur sports, or prevention of cruelty to animals and children,” according to the IRS.
I WAS 22 YEARS OLD; WHAT I DIDN’T KNOW,
I FIGURED I COULD GOOGLE.
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501C3ANDME
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The federal tax agency also designates 501c1s and 501c2s, all the way up to 501c29s, depending on the purpose of the organization. For instance, 501c4s can do political lobbying. Others are more obscure. A 501c21 is a black-lung benefit trust. Cemetery companies fall under 501c13. I called GEMS “educational” — close enough for government work, I figured. I wrote a mission statement in which I promised to “build confidence, promote and develop leadership skills, and empower young women to become active
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provide what we lacked: a formal structure to seek donations and grant money; a way to legally pay my coleader; and, of course, legitimacy. I was 22 years old; what I didn’t know, I figured I could google. It was my first foray into the nonprofit sector — a world with its own rules for taxation, fundraising and oversight. GEMS would be joining the more than 6,000 nonprofits across Vermont, from big organizations like hospitals and churches to tiny local causes like mine. Though different in many ways, we all shared one quality: For-profit corporations aim to generate profit, but nonprofits must make their central mission one of public good. In exchange, the U.S. government exempts 501cs, as they’re called, from paying federal income taxes. In my do-it-yourself case — no lawyer involved — it took four months, two dozen forms, a handful of phone calls to accountants and nonprofit directors, and $400 in filing fees to become a 501c3. Most nonprofits fall into this category of groups established “for purposes that are religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public
contributing members and changemakers within their communities.” To qualify as a nonprofit, GEMS also needed a board of directors. I convinced three women much older than I — a marathon-running emergency room nurse, a guidance counselor and a police-officerturned-prosecutor — to serve. They helped me wade through the rules and regs: In Vermont, 501c3s are exempt from paying state income tax, sales tax and property tax, as long as the property is used by and benefits the public. “The quid pro quo is [that nonprofits] need to serve the public at large,” explained Burlington-based Tapia, who specializes in nonprofit accounting. It costs $125 to become incorporated as a Vermont nonprofit. Registrants pick a name for their organization and file as a trust, an unincorporated association or, in the vast majority of cases, as a nonprofit corporation — a designation that protects board members from financial liability, Tapia said. State incorporation allows entities to set up a bank account and allows potential donors to investigate to “see if it’s legit,” said Ashley Sherman, who works in the corporations division of the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office. A federal filing is required to get the most important benefit: the right to solicit tax-deductible donations. For some nonprofits, that means filling out an IRS form called the 1023. It features 28 pages of check boxes and bureaucratic jargon, plus a host of additional forms: articles of organization, bylaws, financial documents, a statement of where the assets will go if the entity is dissolved and a description of its purposes “in specific, easily understood terms.” Fortunately, GEMS didn’t have to go through all that. Since our organization had less than $250,000 in assets and anticipated an annual income of less than $50,000 in each of the following three years, we qualified to file a 1023EZ. That simpler, streamlined 2.5-page form was introduced in 2014 to reduce the IRS backlog of 501c3 applications, according to Tapia. The form asked me for a list of board members and an employer identification number — which required a separate application to the IRS. The 1023-EZ doesn’t
SEVENDAYSVT.COM
W
hen someone asks certified public accountant Wallace Tapia how to properly set up a nonprofit organization, he always recommends hiring an attorney to stay on the right side of the Internal Revenue Service. But I didn’t know that in 2015. For three summers, I had been running a leadership and mentoring program for middle school girls in Randolph, my hometown. We called ourselves GEMS: Girls Empowered, Motivated, Strengthened. We had our agenda nailed: guest speakers, treks downtown for community service, group discussions, games of capture the flag and crafts such as tie-dyeing. What had started as a pet project during college vacations had grown. People began to offer donations; parents interested in signing up their daughters wanted some assurance that we were legal. I started to feel a twinge of unease that my financial documentation was limited to an Excel spreadsheet on my laptop and copies of grant letters from funders. Official nonprofit status would
THOMAS JAMES
501c3andMe
COURTESY OF GEMS
501c3andMe « P.23 ask for bylaws or other documents, but I had to promise, under penalty of perjury, that I had all of those things. A web search turned up a bylaws template I could use. The board members and I met in a public library to do some soul-searching about the nonprofit’s rules of the road. Should board members have to donate? Would the board follow Robert’s Rules of Order? Would there be term limits? We hashed out the tenure and duties of board members, the board election process, and our decisionmaking protocols. We wound up with a
three-page document. In the end, the figure-it-out-as-you-go approach served us well. It usually takes four to six weeks for the IRS to acknowledge the 1023-EZ, as opposed to four to six months for the full form, according to Tapia. On September 9, 2016, an email arrived from the IRS with good news for GEMS. “We’re pleased to tell you we determined you’re exempt from federal income tax under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 501c3,” it read. The process had taken less than two weeks.
Seven Days staff writer Katie Jickling (back row, far left) with girls in the GEMS program
But even if GEMS had filed flawed applications, neither the feds nor the state would likely have noticed, said Tapia. Vermont merely requires a biennial report updating board members and officers. The Secretary of State’s Office investigates — and could eventually revoke the state recognition — only if a nonprofit fails to send its paperwork and the required $20 fee, according to Sherman. An
additional registration is required if the organization plans to pay a nonemployee or an outside agency to fundraise. As for the feds, Tapia said he’s only seen the IRS audit organizations half a dozen times in the last 25 years. Lauren-Glenn Davitian is the founder of Common Good Vermont, an organization that advocates and provides resources for nonprofits across the state.
She said starting a nonprofit is not always advisable. “You have to have made sure it’s absolutely necessary,” said Davitian, noting that teaming up with an umbrella or partnership organization can be a better way to “get the work done.” The bureaucracy of operating an organization is “not about doing the thing you’re in love with; it’s about running a business,” she said. Davitian has a point; grant writing and tax forms aren’t as exciting as leading discussions about class and race with 12-year-olds, our knees dirt-stained from hide-and-seek tag. But in the case of GEMS, the bureaucracy paid off. We opened a bank account and, in late 2016, had something to put in it: a $20,000 grant from the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation. Last year, when my day job got too demanding, the board hired a part-time executive director to replace me. I still work the summer session, my coworkers and I now actually get paid, and GEMS is going — and growing — strong. ! Contact:
[email protected]
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Who we are is where we are.
Nonprofit Margins « P.17 more than $20,000 per year would still only receive a $1,000 tax credit. Samsom and his boss, Gov. Phil Scott, opposed the cap but said they could live with it. The nonprofit community has not been so sanguine. In an April letter to legislators, industry leaders said the
IF YOU AS A NONPROFIT ARE COMPETING WITH ANOTHER NONPROFIT,
YOU’RE MAKING A HORRENDOUS MISTAKE. BI L L SCHUBART
‘The Multimillion Dollar Question’
Changes to the tax code aren’t the only existential threat nonprofits face. As Seven Days will further explore in its “Give and Take” series, the very success of the sector has brought about new challenges, from financing to governance. A decline in volunteerism has forced some nonprofits to hire more staff, which increases costs and requires more fundraising. Even public libraries have to consider capital campaigns, consultants and development budgets. “Funding is so tight that it gets in the way of doing your mission,” said Robinson, the Plainfield consultant, “because you have to spend so much time on fundraising, versus trying to do what you’re in business to do.” The proliferation of nonprofits has led to overlap and duplication. Some nonprofit leaders quietly wonder whether there are too many organizations serving the homeless and the hungry — each competing for donors and dollars.
“Sometimes it gets turfy, and sometimes it gets territorial,” Robinson said. Bill Schubart, who has chaired 10 Vermont boards and served on a few more, said he has no patience for sharpelbowed nonprofit leaders. He believes they should instead be looking for ways to collaborate with one another. “Competition is terrific in the business sector. It has absolutely no place in the not-for-profit sector,” he said. “If you as a nonprofit are competing with another nonprofit, you’re making a horrendous mistake.” Traditional sources of funding are also in flux. Younger donors are more inclined to donate directly to a cause — sometimes through an online GoFundMe campaign — than they are to organizations that aggregate contributions. “There’s a higher degree of skepticism toward institutions,” said Smith, the Vermont Community Foundation chief. That’s resulted in declining revenue at organizations such as the United Way of Northwest Vermont, which last month announced it would no longer fund many nonprofits that had long relied on its grants. Individual donors aren’t the only ones whose habits are changing. In recent years, government austerity has threatened funding for many Vermont institutions. When Mark Redmond took over Spectrum Youth & Family Services in 2003, 97 percent of the Burlington organization’s budget came from state and federal coffers. These days, only 40 percent does. Private donors have more than made up the difference, upping their support from 2 percent of Spectrum’s budget to 52 percent. “So we’re all doing bake sales and sleep-outs and runs and walks, not only
to do something new and different but to backfill the money the state isn’t giving,” Redmond said. Even as the government provides less money to nonprofits, it’s expecting more from them. “When the public sector steps away from adequately addressing needs, where does the need fall? It often falls to the private, nonprofit sector,” said Gaye Symington, president of the High Meadows Fund. “So whether it’s health care or opiates or land conservation or water quality or clean energy, the needs don’t go away just because the public funding is not adequate.” Asked whether he feels like an unfunded arm of the government, Redmond said, “That’s the multimillion-dollar question! What is the government’s responsibility, and what is philanthropy’s responsibility?” Graham, the longtime fundraising consultant, looks at the situation differently. It’s not that the public and for-profit sectors have abdicated their responsibilities, she argues. It’s that nonprofits “are doing the work that just wasn’t done before.” “When I was younger, there was no such thing as a senior center. There was no such thing as a food shelf. There was no such thing as an arts organization,” she said. “I think our expectations of society and what society can take care of have expanded a great deal. It’s not a transfer of responsibilities. It’s an expectation that we can do more than we used to do.” ! Contact:
[email protected] Digital editor Andrea Suozzo compiled data for this story; staff writer Mark Davis contributed reporting.
SEVENDAYSVT.COM
move would “fundamentally change the nature of charitable giving in Vermont” and “hurt our communities.” University of Vermont Foundation president and CEO Shane Jacobson penned the letter. He said that roughly 100 Vermonters donate more than $20,000 a year to the university — and some are now reconsidering doing so. “The message [legislators] are sending to those who are generous is that gifts above that cap are not wanted, or at least not valued at that level,” Jacobson said. “That’s the wrong message to give to the donor community.” The ramifications could be felt even at the smallest nonprofits, warned John Killacky, the outgoing executive director
and CEO of the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts. “Let’s not destabilize the food banks right now,” he said. “Let’s not destabilize the shelters.” Sen. Ann Cummings (D-Washington), Ancel’s counterpart on the Senate Finance Committee, said she understands the anxiety and thinks it’s “reasonable.” But she cautions that it’s too soon to say how all the adjustments to the federal and state tax codes could affect philanthropic giving. “There will be a change in behavior, in all probability,” Cummings said. “Which way it’ll go for the charities we don’t know. A year from now, we’ll have a better idea.”
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