Nick Fuller-Googins

Last Christmas was Michelle Finholdt’s worst. Shortly before the 2007th anniversary of Christ’s birth, Minnesota’s Supreme Court ruled that Finholdt’s nonprofit agency was too much like a for-profit business, meaning that come April 15th, she would be expected to cough up $16,000 in property taxes for the first time since founding the Under the Rainbow Child Care Center in 1994. She probably prayed for a holiday miracle, but even St. Nick isn’t foolish enough to go flying around with that much cash on hand.

As the New York Times dutifully reported last week, nonprofits are becoming increasingly business-like across the country, and the questions are piling up like dorm room laundry. Are these agencies doing anything for the pubic good? For the ones who are not, should they really be given a considerable tax-exemption for doing so? And festering underneath the questions is growing pressure for some non-profits to start anteing up.