I.  Obama Nominates New NEA Chair

On Tuesday, February 12, President Obama announced that he will nominate Jane Chu, President and CEO of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (Kansas City, MO) to be the next chair of the National Endowment for the Arts

Chu has led Kansas City's Kauffman Center since 2006. She was an executive at the Kauffman Fund for Kansas City from 2004 to 2006 and VP of external relations for Union Station Kansas City from 2002 to 2004. She also has degrees in visual arts, piano performance and music education. (Johnson, Ted. "Obama Nominates Kansas City Arts Leader for NEA Post." Variety. N.p., 12 Feb. 2014. Web.)

II.  Charitable Deductions for 501(c)3

Last November, Ginny visited Washington to advocate that Congress maintain the Charitable Deduction and she recently received a note from Robert Gardner of Senator Schumer's office with some good news:

As you probably know, a key provision in the tax code aiding philanthropic organizations expired at the end of 2013--- a provision allowing tax-free distributions from qualifying individual retirement accounts (IRAs) for charitable purposes, known as the IRA charitable rollover (sec. 408(d)(8)).

My boss introduced legislation...to eliminate the donation limit and make permanent the IRA charitable rollover. The measure was introduced to show support for the IRA rollover with five bipartisan cosponsors: Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Carl Levin (D-MI), Mark Pryor (D-AR), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)...Unfortunately, the Republicans objected to moving forward with a package prior to consideration by the Senate Finance Committee.

As a result, we now anticipate consideration of the entire package in the Finance Committee early this year. As a potential tax extenders markup approaches, we are asking interested members of the philanthropic community to voice their support for an extension of the IRA rollover. If you would like to weigh in, an endorsement letter or statement speaking to the importance of a timely reinstatement of this provision would be greatly appreciated.

Please take a moment to send the message like this to Senators Schumer and Gillibrand. Here are their addresses:

Senator Charles Schumer                          Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

322 Hart Senate Office Building                 478 Russell

Washington, DC  20510                            Washington, DC  20510