Omnibus Bill Ups Funding For Nonprofits Facing Security Risks
Police stand outside the JCC of St. Paul, Minnesota, after it was evacuated in response to a bomb threat. Image by Facebook/Star Tribune
The $1.3 trillion spending bill passed by the house includes a major boost in funding to protect not-for-profits from security threats.
The Non-Profit Security Program out of the Department of Homeland Security will see its budget more than double, from $25 million to $60 million. The program provides grants to not-for-pprofits for security equipment and training to deter and combat terrorism.
Jewish Federations of North America, which lobbied for the funding increase, said in a statement that, “Nonprofits generally, and Jewish communal institutions specifically, have been the victims of a growing number of violent attacks.”
In 2012, 97% of the non-profit security grants were awarded to Jewish Institutions.
The bill also provides the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism with at least $1 million for programs to combat anti-Semitism abroad and funding for the U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues.
After threatening to veto the bill over immigration policies such as DACA and funding for the border wall, President Trump announced he will sign the bill into law.
Contact Avichai Scher at scher@forward.com or on Twitter, @avi_scher
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
