Today, Lysa Ratliff, CEO of KABOOM! and Daniel J. Cardinali, president and CEO of Independent Sector attended the White House signing of the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act, a victory for nonprofits.
Ratliff and Cardinali issued the following statement about the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act:
“The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act brings with it generational investments in the civic and community infrastructure that nonprofits need in order to meet their missions. As co-chairs of the Nonprofit Infrastructure Investment Advocacy Group (NIIAG), we thank President Biden and the policymakers who supported this legislation and offer even deeper gratitude and congratulations to the advocates who fought to make it happen.
America needs roads and bridges, but they are not the only essential assets that bring our nation together. This is why we founded the NIIAG last summer: to lift up and marshal the nonprofit sector’s support for policies that knit society together and invest in assets that create vibrant communities. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act contains a remarkable breadth and depth of policy victories for civic infrastructure and the NIIAG policy agenda, including:
- $65 billion for broadband internet infrastructure and affordability
- $39 billion for clean transit, the largest public transit investment in our nation’s history
- $1 billion to create a first-ever program reconnecting communities – often communities of color – that were damaged or divided by the infrastructure of the past
- $50 million for a new program awarding energy-efficiency grants to nonprofits
Nonprofit organizations have played a critical role in responding to the health and economic crisis, and this legislation will help them further lift up their communities in the months and years to come. Members of the Nonprofit Infrastructure Investment Advocacy Group deserve an immense amount of credit for these victories, having deployed toolkits with their networks, activated grassroots advocates, and raised their collective voice with policymakers on these issues.
We are again grateful to the many bipartisan legislators who supported this legislation, and we look forward to working with them and others to advance our shared priorities.”
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