PILOTs Debated in Brockton

Hotly contested among nonprofits, the topic of payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) is back in the local headlines, courtesy of Brockton's Mayor Bill Carpenter. As outlined in a recent Boston Globe article (Brockton Mayor wants nonprofits to pay), Carpenter is asking 21 of the city's major nonprofits to forge PILOT agreements, in order to stick to an earlier campaign promise not to raise taxes for the city's residents.

Included in the Globe article is a response from Ward 2 City Councilor Tom Monahan, who said that despite their contributions to the community, nonprofits "drain public resources." Monahan cited Brockton's Fire Department, which he said answered 294 calls from the Father Bill's & MainSpring shelter last year. "At $1,000 a call, that's almost $300,000 right there,'' said Monahan.

"The real question is where would the City of Brockton be, and at what cost, if not for organizations like Father Bill's & MainSpring," said MNN CEO Rick Jakious. "Squeezing nonprofit organizations that dedicate 100% of their resources to critical social safety net and quality of life issues is a short-sighted solution that doesn't solve the underlying problem."

The Arts Factor 2014 Report: 

Arts and Culture's Impact on Greater Boston

By John Beck, ArtsBoston

We've always known that Greater Boston's arts are important for quality of life, economic development, workforce retention, education, and community development, but we haven't had the local data to back it up, until now. 

Do you know how many people attend non-profit arts and cultural events in a year?  The answer might surprise you: 18,275,799! That is more than four times the total attendance for the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins combined. Or enough to sell out Fenway Park 488 times (six season's worth of home games)! Now that's a lot of people.

The Arts Factor 2014 Report, a new research initiative by ArtsBoston and sponsored by Bank of America, uses never-before-published data from 354 nonprofit arts and cultural organizations that participate in the Massachusetts Cultural Data Project.  It details the Greater Boston region's cultural advantage in four main categories (Identity, Vitality, Innovation, Transformation), along with case studies that illuminate the cross-sector impact behind the data. Read more...

Giving USA Report Shows Giving by Individuals, Foundations Increased in 2013 

• Total estimated U.S. charitable giving in 2013 was $335.17 billion, an increase of 4.4% (increase of 4.2% by individuals, 5.7% by foundations, 8.7% by bequest) 
• Giving by corporations declined by 1.9% 
• 72% of all charitable giving was made by individuals 
• Religious organizations received the greatest percentage of contributions (31%) although it continues to decrease each year 
• Giving to education-related causes grew the most in 2014 (8.9%) 

Survey Backs Up "Doing Well by Doing Good" 

Proving what we all hoped to be true, Nielsen's recent survey Doing Well by Doing Good found that more than half of online consumers around the world (55%) will pay more for products and services from companies that are socially and environmentally responsible. Read more...