TNPA | Position Statement

September 9, 2019
Shannon McCracken
Data Privacy, Policy

The Nonprofit Alliance supports responsible legislation that will give consumers accessibility and control.

Members of The Nonprofit Alliance take consumer data privacy very seriously. We believe that consumers should be able to understand what information is being collected, why and how it will be used, and have the ability to opt out of any use of their information that they do not like.

Nonprofits’ relationships with donors and beneficiaries are built on trust; it is the foundation of nonprofit work. The Nonprofit Alliance supports responsible legislation that will give consumers accessibility and control.

In California, we want to ensure that the law does what the authors intended it to do and enact a balanced approach without unintended harm.

In its current form, the California data privacy law’s overly broad and confusing language will – albeit perhaps unintentionally – create expensive and cumbersome compliance requirements which, in some instances, do not offer actual benefit or additional privacy control for consumers.

The Nonprofit Alliance is not looking to unravel or stop privacy legislation.

Because nonprofit organizations use third party data and outside data providers, costs to reach new individual donors and other supporters and beneficiaries will increase, despite the law’s exemption for nonprofit organizations.

The impact of this proposed legislation will have a dramatic negative impact on the philanthropic sector across the country.

Not only does California represent 12% of the U.S. population but more importantly, 20% of philanthropic giving on annual basis. This law will drive up expenses and place restrictions that will make it untenable for many nonprofits to raise the funds necessary to maintain and increase programs – the very services that benefit the consumers the law aims to protect.

The Nonprofit Alliance is not looking to unravel or stop privacy legislation. Consumer privacy is critically important. The lobbying efforts of The Nonprofit Alliance are in support of reasonable solutions to preserve the critically important role nonprofits serve in our local and global society.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: See TNPA’s updated Position Statement on the need for a national privacy statute (June 3, 2021).