04/14/2025

Take a Stand in Defending Nonprofits and the Work We Do

Let lawmakers know how your organization's work betters our state

Following the ASAE 2025 Legislative Fly-in on March 25-26, 2025, many of the delegates reported that the challenge facing nonprofit organizations and the tax-exempt status they receive seem to be tied to a general lack of education/understanding about the significant work that nonprofit organizations – particularly associations – do on behalf of the communities they serve.

Several OSAP members, including OSAP Chair Evan Newman, MBA, SIMA; OSAP Foundation Director Tom Balzer, CAE, MBA, Ohio Trucking Association; OSAP Board Member Cate Smith, JD, MPA, PMPA and Garra Liming, ASNT attended the fly-in and spoke to our Ohio lawmakers about the impactful work their organizations and colleagues are doing to better the lives of countless Ohioans and Americans. I thank each of them from the bottom of my heart. Another association representative from Ohio, John Stacy, from the Game Manufacturers Association, also attended and shared his organization's message. Thank you, John.

When educated about the services, products and benefits associations provide to their various communities – the public, the food insecure, those seeking upskilling, professionals looking for advanced certifications – many of the lawmakers and their staff members appeared to better recognize the need for nonprofits to maintain their tax-exempt status. In fact, when it was pointed out that many organizations’ efforts relieve the financial stresses on local, state and federal entities, many heads nodded in agreement, acknowledging the impactful work associations often do while operating on shoe-string budgets.

What the Community Impact Coalition could use from our peers in the association community is more stories and testimonials highlighting the impact their organizations have on the communities and the lives of those they serve.

We’d love to hear from you and your members about the work you do to improve the lives of your community members, who just happen to also be lawmakers’ constituents.

Please take action today and complete this form sharing your experiences so lawmakers can be better educated about the lives you elevate through your association – lives that may not be elevated if you were to be stripped of your tax-exempt status.

The form can be accessed here: https://tinyurl.com/yuukk2uw.

On behalf of OSAP, ASA, the Community Impact Coalition and the association community I am honored to serve, I thank you.

Warmest regards,
Jarrod A. Clabaugh, CAE
President, Ohio Society of Association Professionals
Immediate past-chair, Association Societies Alliance,
Chair, MBA Research Business Advisory Council
Steering Committee Member, The Community Impact Coalition