A few weeks ago, I did an interview with the Chronicle of Philanthropy. You may have seen the video or read the article, “Charities Warned of ‘Tsunamis’ Over Tax Issues.” These issues will not go away with the resolution of the debt crisis and merit further attention.

Tsunamis are incredibly destructive because they offer little warning. Their power builds as they move from deep to shallow water, which explains why ships rarely report seismic sea waves – and why people on shore fail to seek safety before it’s too late. I believe a tsunami is rolling in and about to hit the nonprofit world. Few people at charities and foundations recognize its source; even fewer see the danger.

A number of powerful forces threaten to alter the charitable world including:

• A staggering national debt.
• The exponential cost increases of providing retirement benefits and health care to the baby boomers that can’t be sustained unless we change policies or generate new revenue.
• A hesitant economic recovery that has left nearly 14 million people out of work and an unemployment rate trending up since March.

Restoring our nation’s overall fiscal health requires lawmakers to raise taxes and cut spending. However unpopular, members of both parties must embrace these twinned options to some extent if they are to move their respective agendas forward.

Throughout this process, President Obama and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been calling for comprehensive tax reform. (You may recall that I talked about this in my May blog.) Their reasons differ. Some seek to reform the tax code as a way of generating trillions in new revenue. Others want to simplify it as well as make it more equitable and fair. Still others seek to encourage businesses to stay in the US and spur job growth.

As lawmakers move beyond the debt ceiling extension and examine ways to create new revenue streams, the tax dollars that facilitate the work of nonprofits are expected to be on the table along with other taxed revenue. Lawmakers will surely ask whether:

• Federal, state, and local governments can afford to relinquish such revenue at a time when school days have been shortened, garbage pick up occurs less frequently, and police officers are being let go.
• Benefits that nonprofits deliver to society are worth the tax money lost by offering them tax-exempt status.
• All tax-exempt organizations continue to be entitled to their protected tax status. Can they really justify that their missions and programs are serving the common good?

Some of you, our members, have joined us as we’ve made the rounds on Capitol Hill with new and veteran lawmakers. While we’ve seen great support for the charity world, few lawmakers know much about what it takes to do our work. Few recognize that nonprofits are small businesses; few recognize that nonprofits employ approximately 10 percent of their constituents and account for over 5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. (For more great stats on the sector’s economic impact, see our fact sheet here.)

This lack of understanding could be critical as lawmakers hear ideas from their peers about restricting the government assistance, direct and indirect, that flows to nonprofits or if they are asked to consider measures that would change how nonprofits operate.

Unless government officials understand the value these organizations add to their communities; what it takes to run a high performing nonprofit; and what damage such changes in government aid and regulation would wreak on organizations in their states and district as they search for new revenue, they may harm the very groups that they laud.

When you meet with public officials, it is worth underscoring that the bedrock of America’s vibrant charitable sector is a tax system that has for nearly a century strongly encouraged Americans to give to a good cause; that supports those who organize voluntarily when they see a need in their community that neither business nor government has filled; that enhances our daily lives in a thousand different ways.

We need not become victims of a storm surge. But to do so we must work together to share the immense value of the nonprofit world with the people who represent us in Washington.