Lawmakers and nonprofits want to protect their donors’ privacy, but transparency advocates argue those who are politically involved shouldn’t be able to maintain anonymity. Getty Images.

By Leslie Bonilla Muniz
Indiana Capital Chronicle

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana’s state and local governments wouldn’t be able to require or publicly disclose nonprofit donor data under a proposal that is nearing law.

Lawmakers and philanthropic organizations have said it protects donor privacy, which can be critical in securing donations. But transparency groups say it could obfuscate the role big donors play in politics and beyond.

Charities and churches can obtain tax-exempt nonprofit status, but so can business leagues, farmers cooperatives, social clubs and politically oriented organizations.

House Bill 1212 would block all levels of Hoosier government from forcing nonprofits to hand over “personal information” — defined as any compilation of data identifying nonprofit members, supporters, volunteers or donors. It would additionally ban the public release of that information.

And it would bar government agencies from requiring — or requesting — that their contractors or grantees provide lists of nonprofits they’ve supported, financially or not.

The bill classifies the information as confidential and exempts it from public records requests. But it also contains a lengthy list of exceptions, with existing campaign finance and lobbyist filings at the top.

“What we’re doing is saying: if we want to make changes, that’s a legislative decision,” the bill’s Senate sponsor Sen. Liz Brown, R-Fort Wayne, told the Capital Chronicle. “Just to make sure that an agency … is not allowed to make those decisions.”

Making Donation Decisions Easier

Donors don’t need to give money, and nonprofit advocates want to assuage their fears through privacy guarantees.

“Speaking with our members, it’s clear that donor privacy is one of the basic things that they’re asked when consulting with donors,” said Claudia Cummings, the president and CEO of the Indiana Philanthropy Alliance.

The organization, one of the bill’s major supporters, represents numerous charitable foundations. Members are generally 501(c)3 groups, a type barred from political activity.

Cummings said donors may want anonymity out of a simple desire for privacy or humility. Or, they may want to avoid harassment, retaliation or solicitation.

“Donors get to choose how they spend their money — these are their private dollars,” she noted. “They can choose to save it, they can choose to buy something with it, or they can choose to give it. … If those donors were to withdraw from investment in the social sector, what impact would that have?”

Cummings and other House Bill 1212 supporters have said they want to codify the anti-disclosure concept into state law.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly invalidated laws compelling donor disclosure along First Amendment lines, some states have recently moved to implement such rules.

Case law goes back decades, to the Jim Crow era’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama. The high court ruled that requiring the civil rights organization to disclose its membership would expose those people to retaliation.

The justices most recently acted in 2021’s Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta, which involved several conservative advocacy groups and a California law mandating disclosure of top donors. A divided courtstruck that law down as well.

Right To Know

But because Indiana’s bill also includes nonprofits that are allowed to engage in politics — including 501(c)4 groups like Americans for Prosperity — some say it would reduce transparency.

Bill sponsor Brown said she believed in the right to privacy regardless of political involvement — or affiliation, offering the abortions rights group Planned Parenthood and anti-abortion pregnancy resource centers as examples.

“Whether they’re a 501(c)3 or a 501(c)4, I think that’s a protection that we all seem to agree is important, and I think we should continue that,” Brown said. “I hope that — I didn’t feel we were doing this just for political advocacy protection.”

“I think we’re doing it because, in my neck of the woods, I have been a donor. I have been part of an organization soliciting funds: Boys and Girls Clubs, different things like that,” she continued. “And I can tell you that people sometimes like to give, but they like to give anonymously.”

Abundant Exceptions

The bill isn’t indiscriminate. Instead, it treads a narrow path between broad protections for donors and nonprofits and a detailed, 12-part list of exceptions.

Existing campaign finance and lobbying disclosure laws top the list.

That’s followed by warrants, requests for the legal process of discovery, court evidence, voluntary release to an agency, other reports to the secretary of state, State Board of Accounts examinations, attorney general investigation-related requests, payment-related state auditor efforts, licensing and hospitals.

Many of the exceptions themselves apply only if specific conditions are met.

McKean said he hadn’t looked at Indiana’s bill in detail, but that similar proposals in other states underwent “little tweaks” that collectively “riddled” the legislation with exceptions.

“It’s not clear why — it’s not clear to me, anyway — why you’d push so hard for a bill that is going to end up being riddled with all these exceptions, especially when you don’t need it,” McKean said.

Indiana, House Bill 1212 is heading to conference committee because senators added several exceptions with which House lawmakers disagreed. They’ll hash out their disagreements before sending it to Gov. Eric Holcomb’s desk.

Another nonprofit-focused bill, this one authored by Brown, is awaiting his signature. Senate Bill 302would bar state agencies and officials from giving nonprofits filing and reporting requirements stricter than existing state or federal law.

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