PETER FROSCH, legislative director to Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), principal sponsor of HR5533, the Nonprofit Sector and Community Solutions Act, spoke last week to a group of association professionals hosted by Steve Worth, Plexus Consulting.

Setting the stage for his comments, Frosch said that there are "lots of nonprofits" in St. Paul - McCollum’s district - and that the congresswoman has a great interest in seeing them succeed. When he asked congressional research specialists for “everything you have" on the nonprofit sector, Frosch got nothing. There were no white papers, no reports, no facts, no background documents to help legislators understand the structure and jurisdiction of the sector.

"Because there is no relationship, no agency or committee with jurisdiction, no policy for working with them, we don’t know what’s working or not working. We have no data, no interaction."

I almost jumped out of my seat! Worth knew when he invited me that I was hostile, and, unlike the majority of those in the room, completely opposed to more federal legislation or regulation to "oversee" our community. Frosch’s comments made me want to scream, “Why aren’t we doing a better job of educating the Congress?” We owe it to our organizations and ourselves to provide this oversight and understanding of our community.

This will come as a surprise to those who know me: I kept my mouth shut! I listened. Then, I slowly got up and challenged Mr. Frosch to tell us more about why, exactly, we need this legislation.

It isn’t going to pass this session, he said, but we need a place where dialogue will take place; a place/group to identify issues for the administration so they can discuss relationships. "Nonprofits are suffering because there is no place to have the conversation. This is not an end but a working group, a start…"

He got my attention and piqued my interest in knowing more. Frosch said there would be a briefing in September, not about the bill but to talk about nonprofit basics. “It is critical that we have data and everyone is excited” about the possibility of bringing it all together, he said.

Still, I want to know where associations, professional societies and philanthropies have been all this time. Why aren’t we doing a better job for our "sector"? We need someone to do a better job rallying our troops on the Hill.