I Heard it With My Own Ears

A follow-up to Katrina Part Deux

Here’s what you must know from previous posts so that you really understand what I am beefed about:

1. 1. Since 1968, the National Heritage Foundation has been encouraging Charitable Entrepreneurship. People who want to make the world a better place have been encouraged to set up a “foundation at NHF”, make donations from their own pockets, obtain funds from friends and neighbors, and from other fund raising events, then make suggestions to the final authority at NHF for the expenditure of those funds – pay reasonable compensation for salaries, fees and expenses – and help get the job done.
   
   
   
2. In 2006 – with 14 pages of laws about Donor Advised Funds in a 400 page Pension Reform Act – Congress prohibited a Donor Advised Fund from making a payment to ANYONE for either compensation or expense reimbursement. But still left it okay for compensation and expenses to be paid from a public or private foundation.
   
   
3. The day after September 11, 2001 we had – from our thousands of foundation accounts – placed over $2,000,000 in the hands of relief efforts. The same was true in the Hurricane Season of 2005, when Katrina and Rita hit Louisiana and Texas. We had many donors who picked up stakes and moved to the area to begin the clean-up and help the hard-hit residents.
   
   
4. Then August 6, 2006 the government changed the law (see #2 above) and Donor Advised Funds could no longer pay personal compensation or even expenses for the work they did.
   
   
5. My comments in Katrina Part Deux were, “What if we have another tragedy and Donor Advised Funds are no longer able to help directly? What if they can help only indirectly by giving funds to other public and private charities?” I am reminded of what Jonathan Grissom said to the CNN Reporter, when the reporter asked about the $5 million he donated to his own private foundation. He replied, “My wife and I wanted to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty, and help to rebuild our town.” Now they can’t – through a Donor Advised Fund.

An essential part of charitable entrepreneurship has been blocked by Congress! The NHF concept, then, grew to include:

• (1) The National Heritage Foundation, Inc. (NHF) is a Donor Advised Fund, making grants to domestic and abroad to IRS-approved (at home) or NHF-approved (abroad) charitable activities.
  
  
• (2) It includes the non-donor advised fund called Congressional District Programs, Inc. (CDP) where a “field of interest” program is initiated, managed with our supervision by a non-donor, but still unable to make any payment to a donor.
  
  
• (3) And also Charity Admin Inc. (CAI) which can set up and administer an independent public or private charity for a client individual or company.
  

So my point in “Katrina Part Deux” was that – with this Pension Reform Act on the books, and with our being unable from a Donor Advised Fund to pour resources directly into an emergency area – another emergency tragedy like Katrina would be hampered.

And then a tragedy happened. Early on a foggy morning November 8, 2007 in San Francisco Bay, I was attending an InsMark symposium conference. I was out for a jog near the waterfront – I SWEAR I HEARD IT WITH MY OWN EARS a huge freight ship hit a Bay Bridge protection barrier, gashing a tremendous hole in its side, rupturing several fuel-oil tanks and spilling at least 58,000 gallons of fuel oil into the ecological system of the San Francisco Bay from Oakland – nearly to San Jose inland, all the way past the Golden Gate Bridge to the Pacific Coast of California.

“A badly timed heartbreak,” said the San Francisco Chronicle, citing that the black slick of oil was staining one of the richest wildlife regions on the Pacific Coast. It coincided with the migration of 150,000 ducks that had just flown 2,000 miles from Canada to feed in the Bay Ecosystem.

All through the day on Thursday, the heavy fuel oil that spilled from the Cosco Butan washed up on the beaches along the San Francisco and Marin County coastlines leaving purple sheens on the water and black globs in the sand. Hundreds of birds coated in the thick globs of oil were dead. It was heartbreaking. Experts estimate it could take years to restore the ecologic system to its former order. All water birds, mammals such as seals, porpoises and whales, and of course many of the fish.

Volunteers rushed to the beaches, but most were sent home. The government organizations “in charge” did not have the proper equipment for the volunteers to be effective. If California Community Foundations were able – if ANY Donor Advised Funds were able – to pay at least the expenses – not even counting the compensation – of the volunteers, I believe the emergency could have been a lot less devastating.

The crabbers were anticipating a bountiful harvest. Now they are contemplating CANCELLING the season because of the spill. The oil will affect EVERY PART of the food chain in and around the bay. And isn’t it too bad that because of the government’s lack of appreciation of the value of the charitable sector, and their ill-considered prevention of Donor Advised Funds paying expenses of, and reasonable compensation to, volunteers, this sector of the charitable industry cannot directly help.

California is the loser for it. We are all the losers for it.