The nonprofit information site GuideStar has touched off a divisive conversation about how to steer charitable donations away from groups that promote hate — and whether it is appropriate for such a widely used information source to pursue that goal.
GuideStar announced Friday that it would remove flags it had placed on its profiles of 46 charities to warn donors that those groups had been accused of spreading hate. It made the decision to remove them in part because it had new concerns about whether the source of the data was accurate and because its staff members had faced personal threats over the flags, which were first placed on the profiles in February.
GuideStar had added the prominent warning labels at the urging of some of its users, alerting viewers that the Southern Poverty Law Center considers them hate groups. The flags drew strong criticism from conservative organizations that dispute the hate-group characterization and that call the Southern Poverty Law Center — a nonprofit itself — a left-wing attack group.
GuideStar president Jacob Harold said that within a few weeks of the flags being placed on profiles in February, GuideStar started facing criticism. But during the past week, when The Wall Street Journal and other sources started calling attention to them, the protests became more worrisome.
“We’re not afraid to take stands, but we want those stands to be part of a productive dialogue,” said Mr. Harold. “We realized that with the flags up, we weren’t going to be able to engage that conversation in a way that would be as useful as we seek to be in the field.”
Letter of Complaint
Last week, 41 people, including leaders of some of the so-called hate groups, as well as conservatives like former Senator Jim DeMint (who recently stepped aside as head of Heritage Foundation), signed a letter addressed to Mr. Harold, disagreeing with the new banners and the credence it gave to the Southern Poverty Law Center. GuideStar staff members have also have faced a barrage of threats and harassment in the past week, Mr. Harold said.
“It’s disappointing that people can’t disagree with the decision to do this in a more constructive way,” said Gabe Cohen, GuideStar’s senior director of marketing and communications. “It has to be this switch that gets flicked on with such disdain.”
Some in the philanthropic world expressed concern that the threats could stifle speech.
“There’s an important role in our sector for watchdogs and critics and people who are willing to be truth tellers,” said Aaron Dorfman, chief executive of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.
“It’s hurtful to the nonprofit sector and to our democracy if a free exchange of ideas can be curtailed with threats of violence,” he said. “That’s something we should all be opposed to.”
Mr. Dorfman initially saw it as a brave move for GuideStar to take a stand. “This is a very divisive time in our country and donors, ought to know if groups they’re considering donating to are promoting hate.”
A Deeper Look
It wasn’t the threats alone that prompted GuideStar to revise its earlier move.
In the past weeks, Mr. Harold said he and his staff members got additional information that helped them understand the controversy and subjectivity surrounding the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designations.
“We looked more deeply into some specific cases, and we saw that good people could disagree,” he said.
One of the issues: The data contributing to “thoughtfulness” and “thoroughness” of the center’s ratings was not always evident on the group’s website, he said. “For us being in the data business, that was particularly important.”
The SPLC defines hate groups as those that “have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” A Chronicle of Philanthropy analysis published in December found that the Southern Poverty Law Center considers more than 60 tax-exempt organizations to be hate groups. (Also see a letter to the editor arguing with The Chronicle’s use of the center’s list in its analysis.)
The Family Research Council, one of several charities the SPLC has labeled an anti-gay-rights group, released a statement on Monday applauding GuideStar’s reversal and expressing dismay for the threats directed at GuideStar staff members.
“We are generally encouraged by GuideStar’s decision to remove the labeling of nonprofit web pages like ours based on characterizations made by the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Jerry Boykin, the Family Research Council’s executive vice president said in the statement, referring to the SPLC as “a bitterly partisan political organization.”
A spokesman at ACT for America, which the SPLC calls an “anti-Muslim group” said GuideStar’s removal of the center’s logo and warning was “a victory for honesty and for free speech.” The spokesman did not respond to questions about whether the organization had encouraged its supporters to contact GuideStar.
Varying Views
When Mr. Harold discussed the decision to flag the so-called hate groups earlier this month, he said the new banners were consistent with GuideStar’s role to share many different types of nonprofit data. But others saw them a break from precedent for the organization.
Leslie Lenkowsky, professor emeritus of public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University and a regular Chronicle contributor, was critical of GuideStar’s decision to use the Southern Poverty Law Center’s classifications.
Information from any organization that evaluates the nonprofit sector should be scrutinized, he said. “Neutrality is a hopeless idea here,” he said, adding that it would have been more appropriate for GuideStar to point concerned donors to consult the SPLC on their own.
Michael Thatcher, president of Charity Navigator, says his organization has no plans to wade into this territory. The watchdog group evaluates charities based on their financial measures, accountability, and transparency using publicly available information. “We’re not judging them on their mission or organizational goals,” he said.
Looking ahead, GuideStar will continue evaluating its role in helping the public understand how people may, on rare occasions, use a nonprofit to “advance an agenda of hate,” Mr. Harold said. That might mean considering other sources of data and approaches for sharing it.
“It’s very rare for there to be an aspect of nonprofits that’s so touchy” he said. “Is this particular topic just so sensitive at this time in American history that there’s not a productive way for us to engage? We may or may not find a path that is satisfying, but we’re going to give it a shot.”
