Samwise Nonprofits and Charities Newsletter
Tuesday, June 9, 2026
New Data on the Legacy IRA Act Makes the Case for the Charity Parity Act
New data from the American Council on Gift Annuities' 2025 survey—106 charities, $1.8 billion in CGA reserves—shows the Legacy IRA Act is already working: 74% of responding organizations completed at least one QCD-funded charitable gift annuity last year, and QCD-funded CGAs now account for 27% of all new gift annuity activity. The Association of Fundraising Professionals is using this evidence to push for the Charity Parity Act, bipartisan legislation introduced May 13 that would extend qualified charitable distributions to employer-sponsored 401(k)s and 403(b)s. Millions of older donors currently must first roll funds to an IRA—an added step the bill would eliminate.
Sources: AFP Global
5 Takeaways from the 2026 DAF Fundraising Report
A new report from K2D Strategies and Chariot—based on 54 national nonprofits with $3.3 billion in collective DAF revenue—finds donor-advised fund giving growing far faster than conventional philanthropy. From 2022 to 2025, these organizations saw 75% median growth in DAF revenue versus just 12% non-DAF growth. Median DAF revenue share rose from 7% in 2021 to 11% in 2025; for small organizations under $10 million, it jumped from 13.7% to 24.1%. The average DAF gift grew from $2,995 to $3,934—12 times the median non-DAF gift—and DAF donors show retention rates 13 percentage points above non-DAF donors.
Sources: Candid
Could States Lead Climate Justice Funding?
As federal climate regulatory authority narrows, states are becoming key implementers of climate justice funding. In 2025, the DOJ sued New York and Vermont over “climate superfund” laws and moved to block Hawaii and Michigan from pursuing fossil fuel litigation—yet states continue pressing ahead. Federal climate spending under the Inflation Reduction Act (2022) and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (2021) flows largely through state agencies, giving governors and legislatures significant influence over which communities receive clean-energy and resilience investments. Programs like the Justice40 Initiative—targeting 40% of certain federal climate benefits toward disadvantaged communities—depend on state-level execution to determine who actually receives those benefits.
Sources: Nonprofit Quarterly
On the Heels of ICE Raids, Minnesota Also Fights to Save a Wilderness
Congress has nullified a 20-year federal mining ban protecting Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. H.J.Res. 140, signed April 27 as Public Law 119-85, reversed protections for the BWCA—over 1.1 million acres in the Superior National Forest where leases were first issued in 1966. Chilean company Antofagasta (Twin Metals) acquired those leases in 2012. Environmental and tribal organizations—Friends of the Boundary Waters (since 1976), Save the Boundary Waters, Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters, and the Fond du Lac Band—are fighting back, even as Minnesota communities simultaneously face intensive immigration enforcement operations.
Sources: Nonprofit Quarterly
NPQ and Liberation Ventures Partner to Highlight “Visions of a Repaired Future” for America’s 250th
Nonprofit Quarterly and Liberation Ventures have announced a landmark editorial partnership for America’s 250th anniversary. Their “Week of Repair” runs June 19 through July 4, 2026—a 16-day takeover of the WetheCivic platform focused on repairing harm from the last 250 years. Dozens of partner organizations will contribute essays, op-eds, poetry, and visual art built around four pillars: Repair is Personal, Repair is Love, Repair is Community, and Repair is the Future. “Official commemorations are never neutral—they are arguments about who belongs,” said NPQ Interim CEO Sara Hudson. Submissions are open at wethecivic.org using the hashtag #WeekOfRepair.
Sources: Nonprofit Quarterly
Georgia’s Judicial Industry Is Built on the Backs of the Incarcerated Poor
Georgia’s judicial industry—prisons, courts, community supervision, and private detention—generates approximately $5.98 billion annually. A 2025 DOJ investigation found conditions in state prisons constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Between 2018 and 2023, 142 people were killed inside Georgia’s prisons; 2024 set a record of 330 deaths. The state’s incarceration rate of 968 per 100,000 exceeds any democratic nation, while parole grants were cut in half from 2020 to 2025. This incarcerated journalist’s account traces the system to post-Civil War convict leasing—an industry still built on the coerced labor of poor, disproportionately Black Georgians.
Sources: Nonprofit Quarterly
Before the State Showed Up: Black Mutual Aid as the Infrastructure of Our Democracy
Long before the nonprofit sector was professionalized, Black communities built parallel civic systems that functioned as democratic infrastructure. The Free African Society—founded in 1787 by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones—pooled resources for widows, sick residents, and the formerly enslaved. Black churches organized food, legal aid, and political mobilization throughout segregation; by the early 1970s, the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for Children Program was feeding thousands weekly across dozens of cities. As the US approaches its 250th anniversary, this NPQ analysis argues that mutual aid—not elections alone—has sustained democracy for communities excluded from formal political power.
Sources: Nonprofit Quarterly
Curated by JD · samwise.agency