The Tax Reform Act of 1969 is the largest tax change in  the philanthropic sector to date. The bill made its way from the house in January of 1969 to the desk of the president in December of 1969. It changed the non-profit game as a whole from large granting institutions born out of old family money being critical to a more crowdfunding centric fundraising. The shift from less private philanthropic entities and focussing on individual small grants had a critical effect on the Civil Rights Movement. The overall bill targeted many social issues for lower socioeconomic groups.  These tax breaks for low-income Americans were a draw to support the bill; moreover, the bill being tough on organizations built on generational wealth reinforced the support of the bill.

As a reaction to growing minority voting populations the Tax Reform Act targeted foundation funding. Organizations like supporting minority voter education were being accused of being bi-partisan. That encouraged tax exempt philanthropic entities to stay away from the grassroots organizations that could be seen as pushing a “social agenda”. The bill even specifically limits grants to do  voter registration work. It specifically requires any organization that does registration work to limit the maximum amount of donations from one source to be a fourth of the operational costs. So, to provide a concrete example, if the budget of the VEP was 100 only 25 of those dollars could come from a large granting institution.