Follow the money.

Those three little words guide journalists and prosecutors alike. And that explains the news potential of the Georgia-based National Christian Foundation (NCF), www.ncfgiving.com/ which to date has quietly given $14 billion to 71,000 non-profit groups, $1.3 billion of that last year, in both tiny and huge grants. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution piece recently noted that "mysterious" operation is "one of the most influential charities you've never heard of." 

Writing last week for Ministry Watch (a news website that reporters should follow), GetReligion alumnus Steve Rabey reports that NCF became "the world's largest Christian foundation" largely through word-of-mouth referrals rather than promotional efforts. The Chronicle of Philanthropy, which posted antagonistic coverage in February, ranks NCF as the nation's eighth-largest charity.

NCF calls itself a "ministry," and though it aids a wide range of secular non-profit charities it's a particularly important vehicle for religious donations from wealthy conservative Protestants who share its belief that "the entire Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God." The foundation's 26 offices around the U.S. handle donations — contact info posted here — so local angles for the media abound. (At national headquarters, Dan Stroud is C.E.O and Steve Chapman the media contact via info@ncfgiving.com or 404-252-0100.) 

Rabey's piece includes a helpful link to the Guidestar posting of NCF's 593-page IRS Form 990 filed for 2019, with a listing of grant recipients that reporters will want to eyeball. The largest categories of donations ranged from local churches ($215 million) on down to medical care ($21 million). Major causes included evangelism, relief, education, children and youth work, museums, spiritual and community development, media and publishing, orphan care, Bible translation and ministry to the homeless. 

NCF typifies the rising importance of "donor-advised funds" in U.S. philanthropy. The basic idea has existed for a century and was devised as a vehicle for Christian donors in 1982 by pioneering Atlanta tax attorney Terry Parker, still a board member, along with evangelical financial gurus Ron Blue and Larry Burkett. The concept really took off for secular investors in 1991 when Fidelity launched such a fund. The industry is regulated by Congress's 2006 Pension Protection Act and section 4966(d)(2) of the IRS tax code.

Instead of doling out individual contributions, a donor gives tax-exempt gifts to such a fund, which then sooner or later will support causes in line with donor's interests. This streamlines the process, maintains tax exemption and provides donors useful anonymity so they're not pestered by groups seeking money and  avoids backlash from funding controversial causes.

That brings us back to the Chronicle's February attack, which spanned NCF alongside the charities operated by commercial firms like Fidelity and Schwab. It reported that collectively they've pumped millions into 351 "hate groups." The basis for that accusation — of course — was the list of 838 "hate groups" targeted in the 2020 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center of Montgomery, Alabama (SPLC: contact: press@splcenter.org). www.splcenter.org/hate-map/

SPLC's hate list abhors religiously motivated legal and activist organizations over "opposition to LGBTQ rights." Among the better-known are the Alliance Defending Freedom, American Family Association, Family Research Council, Family Research Institute, Liberty Counsel and Pacific Justice Institute, which SPLC thus lumps together with tiny Westboro Baptist Church's gay-baiting picketers, not to mention Nazi and Christian Identity cultists. 

If your outlet hasn't covered this yet, here's an opportunity to examine SPLC's recent scandals and ongoing feuds with religious and cultural conservatives that the organization brands with its "hate" label. See for example this Catholic News Agency piece (“SPLC denounced as ‘thoroughly disgraced’ after labeling pro-life, family organizations as ‘hate groups’ “), this Washington Times report (“The Southern Poverty Law Center is ensnared in a scandal that threatens its survival”) and then this Q&A post from the Alliance Defending Freedom (“Setting the Record Straight”).

The NCF as such is not heavily political — but its religious donors of course want to help e.g. anti-abortion non-profits and the Federalist Society, famed for advising President Donald Trump on Supreme Court and other judicial nominations.

All of which adds to a classic hook for culture-war journalism.

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