It’s not often that the life of a veteran nonprofit executive comes under scrutiny in a closely watched national political contest. But the U.S. Senate race in Georgia is offering a case study as Democratic candidate Michelle Nunn, on leave from her post as chief executive of Points of Light, a national volunteerism charity, battles it out with her Republican opponent.
Her campaign must be one of the few on record to fend off partisan accusations by citing Form 990 tax filings, Charity Navigator, and nonprofit executive-compensation practices.
Ms. Nunn, who spent her entire career at nonprofits before entering and winning this year’s Democratic primary in Georgia, is running close in the polls against businessman David Perdue, though she is expected to face a tough fight in the November election in the heavily Republican state.
Her record at Points of Light has provided fodder for both campaigns. She touts her experience building organizations and mobilizing people, while Republicans have criticized her qualifications, her salary, and her role in nonprofit layoffs.
“Michelle has devoted her life to service by empowering citizens in their own communities,” says a recent Nunn fundraising appeal, while her opponent “has a record of putting profits over people.”
Mr. Perdue, a business executive who has led companies including Dollar General and Sara Lee, returned the insult in a comment reported by the Associated Press.
Who brings more value to a debate over the economy, he asked: “Someone who has been running a philanthropy for 15 years or whatever, or someone who has been out here, not to go bragging, competing in the real world?”
Defining Herself
Jennifer Duffy, who covers Senatorial races for The Cook Political Report, says Ms. Nunn, the daughter of former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn, brings her experience raising money and engaging volunteers to the political table, adding that she has been struck by the number of community-service projects the candidate has highlighted while traveling around the state. “She’s playing to her strengths,” she says.
Because Republicans just selected Mr. Perdue in a runoff election last month, Ms. Nunn has had the “luxury of time” to define herself to voters, she adds. The down side: “Here we are in August and she hasn’t really been tested yet.”
No doubt at least partly to appeal to Republican voters, Ms. Nunn often mentions that former President George H.W. Bush is closely associated with her nonprofit. Mr. Bush helped start the Points of Light Foundation in 1990 to promote “a thousand points of light,” the ode in his inaugural address to community service.
In 2007, the group merged with the HandsOn Network, an Atlanta-based national nonprofit led by Ms. Nunn, who became chief executive of the combined organization, today called Points of Light. Mr. Bush remains honorary chairman of the group, which had revenues of $25-million in 2012 (the most recent year for which data are available), and his son Neil Bush is board chairman.
However, those ties did not translate into an endorsement: The senior Mr. Bush sent a fundraising letter in June asking Republicans to support their party’s nominee in the Georgia race.
Republicans have criticized Ms. Nunn for getting a big pay increase when she took over the merged Points of Light while also overseeing layoffs of dozens of workers. TV ads sponsored by the Ending Spending Action Fund, a conservative super PAC, complained that “she earned as much as $300,000 running a nonprofit.” (Ms. Nunn earned about $299,000 in total compensation in 2012, down from about $322,000 in 2011, according to the two most recent Forms 990 available.)
In a written “fact check,” the Nunn campaign quoted Charity Navigator, a nonprofit ratings group, defending nonprofit leaders who earn six-figure salaries for running multimillion-dollar organizations; summoned Forms 990 to show that Ms. Nunn’s predecessor earned more than she did and that her salary was set with help from an independent compensation consultant “following common industry practice”; and cited news reports about the strengths of the slimmer, merged operation.
‘Problematic Entities’
Opponents also jumped on a leaked Nunn campaign memo, which listed “grants to problematic entities” as a potential vulnerability.
The Ending Spending Action Fund highlighted Points of Light grants to Islamic Relief USA, a charity affiliated with Islamic Relief Worldwide--an organization that Israel recently banned, saying it funnels money to Hamas, which the United States has labeled a terrorist organization. “If Nunn supporters are worried, shouldn’t we be, too?” it asks.
Islamic Relief Worldwide strongly denies it has Hamas ties. The U.S. group called the attacks “baseless” and said in a statement that it works with the United Nations to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, has an excellent relationship with the U.S. government, and follows all relevant U.S. laws and regulations.
Points of Light channeled about $13,500* to Islamic Relief USA through MissionFish, a business it used to operate with eBay that allowed people to donate the proceeds of their auctions to more than 20,000 charities, the organization said in a statement.
“These nonprofits were vetted regularly to ensure tax-exempt status, good standing with the IRS, and exclusion from terrorist watch lists,” it added.
Ms. Nunn once again invoked former President Bush, telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution it was “preposterous” to think an organization that he started would give money to terrorists.
Few Clues to Policies
Ms. Nunn—who recruited two former Points of Light colleagues, Jessica Kirkwood and Paige Moody, as deputy campaign managers—was not available for an interview about how her Senate agenda would affect the charitable world. Campaign documents give minimal clues about stances she might take on issues like the charitable deduction or budget cuts that affect social programs.
She calls the tax code too complicated with “too many loopholes” and supports taking a “blank slate” approach to fixing it—that is, by looking “long and hard at every tax expenditure.”
As befits a candidate in a red state, she emphasizes the need to cut the deficit and national debt, which she says she can do by “applying the same values that I have learned by running a $30-million organization.”
She adds that every program must be evaluated before it is funded and calls for action to confront the rising costs of Medicare and Social Security.
Nonprofit Perspective
One of her longtime friends—Alan Khazei, a prominent nonprofit leader who also vied for a Senate seat several years ago—says he encouraged Ms. Nunn to run and hopes she wins so she can bring a nonprofit perspective to Washington.
Mr. Khazei—best known as co-founder of City Year, a youth-service corps, and now chief executive of Be the Change, a group that mobilizes people to work for social change—lost a 2009 Democratic primary in Massachusetts and dropped out of a subsequent primary in 2011.
He says he ran partly because it’s important for Congress to have members who understand that “the way to solve problems in the 21st century is to take a combination of the best of the nonprofit sector, the government, and the private sector.”
Dig deeper: See The Chronicle’s 2009 profile of Michelle Nunn.
*Note: This figure was originally incorrectly reported as $15,000.
