Public Policy Articles & Analysis

State agencies partner with nonprofits in many important ways, including through contractual relationships, to provide programs and services that benefit communities throughout the state. As with any type of partnership, the contractual relationships between state agencies and nonprofits are not always seamless. The North Carolina Center for Nonprofits has recently sought feedback from nonprofits about their challenges with state grants and contracts.

A 2022  NC Senate bill (S.894) that would address a variety of issues that nonprofits have experienced with their grants and contracts with the NC Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), including late contracts, late payments, underpayment for indirect costs, midstream changes to contract terms, and burdensome application and reporting requirements.

The bill would:

The North Carolina Center for Nonprofits has sent a candidate questionnaire on nonprofit issues to all 535 North Carolina candidates for Congress and the NC General Assembly. The questionnaire is intended to help nonprofit leaders learn more about the candidates on their ballots in the May 17 primary election and the November 8 general election and also to help candidates have a better awareness of the work of nonprofits.

Template Email to Candidates

Dear Candidate,

Opening: Introduce yourself and your organization, and say why you are writing. Include a link to the 2022 Candidate Questionnaire.

Middle: Tell the candidates a little bit about what your organization does and challenges you face that public policies have or could address.

The North Carolina Center for Nonprofits invited every candidate running for statewide office in the 2022 elections to share their insights on questions of interest to nonprofits across the state. Here are their responses.

A new state law that took effect on January 1, 2022 requires local government elected officials who serve on nonprofit boards to recuse themselves from decisions to provide government funding to those organizations. The law means that most local officials who serve on nonprofit boards won’t be allowed to vote on local government budgets that include funding for the nonprofits on whose boards they serve.

On February 14, 2022, a broad coalition of national nonprofits sent a letter to President Biden and congressional leaders calling for “urgently needed pandemic and workforce shortage relief that will enable charitable organizations to fulfill their roles in our nation’s relief, recovery, and rebuilding.” The letter identifies nonprofit-specific policy solutions that would address three major challenges facing nonprofits: