I've built a life that follows my passion: undergraduate degree in social work, three years of service as a Peace Corps volunteer, and more than ten years as a nonprofit professional at Habitat for Humanity. I remember the first time that passion was ignited with Habitat for Humanity. It was just over a decade ago; I was in the Peace Corps, standing as a first-time Habitat volunteer on a build site in Jamaica. As I gathered with my fellow volunteers, I felt anxious and unsure about what to expect or whether I had the skills to do the work. I was a young woman in my 20s and had barely swung a hammer in my life. If asked to, I'm not sure I could have picked a 2 x 4 out of a pile of lumber....

Nonprofit organizations have fewer rights today than they did last year. Thanks to language pushed by Republicans in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012, charities face yet another coordinated campaign by conservatives to quash popular democracy. And unlike past "defund the left" efforts, this legislation wasn't caught in time by charity leaders to prevent its passage. Those efforts began in 1981 with a proposal from the right-wing Heritage Foundation, were pushed by the Reagan White House throughout the early and mid-'80s, morphed into major Republican congressional legislative activity in the mid-'90s, and have come back around in various forms since then. Some have tried to limit what charities can do with private contributions; others have tried to expand the types of activities that are prohibited by charities that receive federal funding. Most of these prior attempts were stopped by watchdog organizations....