What exactly is the purpose of this?

Here’s what our elected officials just approved on a party-line, 45-29 vote. Every private, corporate or public operating foundation in California with assets of more than $250 million (of which there are more than three dozen) would be required to gather information about the gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation of its members and its board of directors and then publish that data on its website and in its annual report. Foundations also would be required to publish such “diversity data” percentages about its staff.

Imagine being the employee who has to ask each co-worker about his or her sexual identity and history. Many of these foundations have relatively small staffs; there won’t be many secrets if this bill becomes law.

But the bill’s shameless intrusiveness doesn’t stop there. The race, ethnicity and sexual orientation of the owners of all businesses with whom the foundation contracts is the next bit of data that the bill requires. Is the printer of foundation reports an Alaskan Native? The event caterer an Asian American? The landlord bisexual or transgendered? Those need to be tallied. The state wants to know the percentage of business contracts in those categories and more.

After that, foundations would have to drill down into the composition of the organizations to which it makes grants. How many grants went to groups with a board or staff that is 50% or more minorities? What percentage of foundation dollars did they get? That too would be reported to the world by the foundation.

The purpose of such legislation seems to be to enable greater funding to help those who need it the most.  The problem is, as the LA Times points out, that “the universe of the underserved” is unbiased towards race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.  To narrowly aim at and account for these factors reinforces stereotypes that do nothing to truly effect actual change.

Not only is this flawed in its measure, but it creates an unnecessary intrusion into the workings of private charity organizations.  Such legislation creates an environment where organizations may not want to or may be entirely unable to operate, further harming any efforts to help those that need it.