A newly obtained amended petition in Polk County District Court sharply expands the allegations in former IPERS risk officer Rich Wiggins’ lawsuit against the State of Iowa.

The amended filing, e-filed Jan. 30, 2026 under LAW NO. LACL 163118, alleges flawed risk reporting, a benchmarking structure that made underperformance effectively impossible, understated management fees and expenses, and false bonus-related information submitted to a state board after Wiggins was fired.

That matters because recent public coverage of IPERS focused on the administrative leave of senior officials and vague references to “misconduct,” while giving the public little sense of what had already been laid — in detail — in the court record.

What Was Already on the Record

The earlier petition, filed in July 2025, alleged that Wiggins was hired in June 2022 as IPERS’ Investment Risk and Operations Officer and fired on Feb. 2, 2023 as a “bad fit” after raising concerns about risk reporting, a benchmarking process that allegedly “artificially creates alpha,” and the understatement of fees and expenses.

Wiggins was not a junior analyst questioning his superiors. Before joining IPERS, he served as head of risk and strategy for Saudi Aramco — the second-largest company in the world. He was hired specifically to ensure IPERS did not become, in his supervisors' own words, "the next Pennsylvania State Employees Retirement System" — a reference to the 2021 scandal involving overstated investment returns and an FBI investigation.

The original petition made clear that Wiggins was alleging more than an ordinary employment dispute. But the amended filing goes much further — and much more specifically.

What the Amended Petition Adds

In the amended petition, the allegations move from broad warning signs to a detailed description of how Wiggins says the system was being presented to decision-makers.

According to this filing, Wiggins alleges IPERS’ reporting was “riddled with errors” in three main areas: risk reporting, a benchmarking rubric that artificially created alpha, and the understatement of management fees and expenses.

On risk reporting: Wiggins alleges IPERS did not use any of the large risk software packages commonly employed by major state pension systems. Instead, the system relied on a small Illinois firm with no other clients of comparable size, using formulas developed by then-Chief Investment Officer Sriram Lakshminarayanan.

IPERS staff then graphed the output by hand in Microsoft Excel. When Wiggins requested the underlying algorithms and formulas, he was told they were unavailable. The Illinois vendor refused to provide them.

In the fall of 2022, Wiggins authored a memorandum recommending that IPERS bring in an outside consultant to verify the risk calculations. No response was received. He wrote a second memorandum. It was ignored.

Colleagues whom Wiggins shared some of the raw numbers with — experts in investment risk — agreed the output appeared visibly flawed and did not represent a robust measure of actual risk.

On benchmarking: The amended petition alleges that a large swath of the portfolio was benchmarked directly to itself — making it mathematically impossible to underperform. As the filing states: if IPERS' private equity, real estate, direct lending, opportunistic credit, and real assets all went to zero, the fund would still not underperform its benchmark, because the benchmark return was set to equal whatever those asset classes actually returned.

The filing characterizes this as, at best, "engineered outperformance" and, at worst, intentional misrepresentation.

Some strategies also allegedly introduced synthetic exposure to stocks and bonds benchmarked to cash — a mechanism that makes outperformance easy to show while introducing undisclosed leverage and obscuring real risk.

On fees: The petition alleges IPERS leadership frequently presented the plan as among the lowest-cost in the country. But the figures shown to the Investment Board excluded underlying private equity manager fees and incentives, and certain fees were structured so they were buried in transactional costs — preventing them from being itemized.

On post-termination conduct: The amended filing goes one step further. It alleges that after Wiggins was terminated, false information was submitted to a state board and money was subsequently requested in the form of bonuses. Under Iowa's False Claims Act (Iowa Code Chapter 685), Wiggins alleges that the use of inaccurate risk metrics and manipulated benchmarking to justify bonus requests constitutes the submission of false claims for compensation.

Those are allegations in a court pleading, not findings by a judge. But they are materially more specific than the version of the story most Iowans have seen so far.

A Filing the Public Never Really Saw

The filing also helps clear up some of the confusion surrounding the case itself. The amended petition identifies the matter as Rich Wiggins v. State of Iowa, filed in Polk County under LAW NO. LACL 163118. Wiggins is represented by Thomas J. Duff and Jim T. Duff of Duff Law Firm, P.L.C. The filing also shows copies to Jeffrey Peterzalek and Steven E. Blankinship for the State.

That level of detail matters on its own. It matters even more because most public coverage to date has focused on vague references to “misconduct” while leaving the substance of the court record largely unexplored.

This amended petition was e-filed on January 30, 2026 — two full months before IPERS CEO Gregory Samorajski and Chief Benefits Officer Steven Herbert were placed on administrative leave in the first week of April.

The timeline raises a question that no outlet has addressed: did the State's investigation begin before or after the amended filing landed? The public has not been told.

What the Public Was Told Instead

When the administrative leaves were announced, the governor's office issued a statement: “This situation does not pose any risk to the IPERS Trust Fund and does not impact the payment of benefits to members.”

That statement is narrowly true. IPERS is 92.7 percent funded. Benefits will continue to be paid.

But the statement does not address what is actually being alleged: that the numbers used to calculate that funding ratio may themselves be unreliable. If risk is understated, fees are concealed, and benchmarks are structured to guarantee the appearance of outperformance, then the system's reported financial health is an output of the very practices now under scrutiny — not an independent measure of it.

Nobody is saying retirees won't get their checks. The question is whether the people responsible for the $45 billion behind those checks were telling the truth about how it was being managed.

What Remains Unanswered

State officials have said senior IPERS officials were placed on leave pending an investigation. What remains unclear is who is conducting that investigation, what its scope is, and whether it overlaps with the allegations in the amended Wiggins filing.

This outlet has been tracking the IPERS story since August 2025, including reporting on pension privatization pressure from the Governor’s DOGE Task Force and a November memorandum of concern regarding potential conflicts of interest on the IPERS Investment Board. Those broader concerns remain separate questions. The amended Wiggins filing does not prove them. But it does establish that the public court record is more developed, and more serious, than recent coverage has suggested.

That is the significance of this filing. It does not prove the case overnight. It does strip away the fiction that the public had no way of knowing what the underlying allegations were. The amended petition exists. It is detailed. It is public. And it shows that the story surrounding IPERS is more serious than the state’s vague language — and much of the press coverage that followed it — has allowed the public to see.

The IPERS trust fund belongs to 424,000 Iowans — teachers, firefighters, corrections officers, state workers, and retirees who built careers on the promise of a secure retirement. They deserve more than reassurance. They deserve the actual record.

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1. Executive Summary

In Iowa, the fox is guarding the henhouse—and the prize is a $143 million market for private financial firms. Kathy Kay, a top executive at Principal Financial Group, helped craft a state task force plan to scrap the public pension system for new hires and replace it with 401(k)-style accounts—the very product her company profits from.

Our analysis shows this change would create a $143 million market for private financial firms over the next decade, with Principal Financial positioned to capture $42.9 million of that total. These projections are validated against industry benchmarks and confirmed through rigorous sensitivity analysis.

This isn’t a homegrown solution. Iowa’s proposal mirrors the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Defined-Contribution Pension Reform Act—a national blueprint for dismantling public pensions. The political sensitivity is so high that some officials have tried to distance themselves from the plan after initially backing it.

Iowa is being used as a test case—part of a coordinated national agenda, fueled by corporate-sector interests, to privatize public retirement security across America.

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2. The Principal Conflict: A Showstopper of Corporate Graft

The Player: A Top Executive at a 401(k) Giant

Governor Kim Reynolds appointed Kathy Kay, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Principal Financial Group, to Iowa’s DOGE Task Force — the body tasked with reimagining the state’s public pension system. Principal, one of the largest 401(k) and defined-contribution retirement plan providers in the U.S., now had a top executive sitting at the table where the future of Iowa’s IPERS would be decided.

Key Finding: The DOGE plan would funnel $2.85 billion into private accounts within a decade, stacking $143 million in Wall Street fees. Principal Financial — where task force member Kathy Kay is an executive — could rake in $42.9 million of that haul.

The task force didn’t stop there. Its 45 recommendations also align with corporate interests in manufacturing and engineering, blurring the line between public policy and private profit. These overlaps come not from speculation, but directly from the task force’s own report and public records.

Figure 2 exposes the play: when a task force stacked with industry insiders makes the rules, Wall Street walks away with billions.

If adopted, the DOGE plan would redirect tens of millions in public retirement funds to private firms—led by Principal Financial, where Task Force member Kathy Kay is an executive vice president. The public loses a stable pension; private finance gains a guaranteed revenue stream.

This isn’t just a potential conflict of interest — it’s a precision-engineered cash grab. With no public record of Kay’s role being disclosed, debated, or mitigated, Iowa’s pension overhaul is being steered through a pipeline built for private profit.

3. Policy DNA: Iowa’s Proposal Traced to a National Template

To determine the policy's origin, an RDP computational analysis compared the Iowa proposal with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC's "Defined-Contribution Pension Reform Act.” The results show a clear pattern of conceptual adoption, not direct copying.

Policy Comparison: ALEC Model vs. Iowa DOGE Proposal

This side-by-side comparison demonstrates that the Iowa proposal is not a novel state innovation, but rather a state-specific iteration of ALEC’s pre-written policy script. By simply swapping “state and municipal employees” for “IPERS new hires” and adjusting dates and agency names, the Task Force reproduced ALEC’s entire policy architecture—complete with the same stakeholder-exclusion mechanism and 401(k) framework—under the veneer of local reform.

4. The Iowa Political Context

As the controversy deepens and appointees quietly distance themselves from the fallout, the outlines of a deliberate political strategy come into focus. This is no drift into chaos — it’s an engineered sequence.

A. The Governor’s Role

Governor Kim Reynolds has maintained a conspicuous public silence. She has not defended the task force’s proposal or directly addressed the growing backlash. But this absence is not neutrality — it’s the second phase of a calculated two-step: active enablement followed by strategic disengagement.

Phase 1: Active Enablement

Governor Reynolds was the architect of this process.

• Personally established the DOGE Task Force by executive order in February 2025.

• Hand-picked its members, creating a body dominated by corporate executives (80%) while explicitly excluding representatives from public labor, teachers, or IPERS beneficiaries.

• Gave the task force its mandate to "run the state like a business," which framed the public pension system as an "outlier" to be eliminated.

• Before the backlash, lent her administration's credibility to the process, publicly praising the members and their work.

Phase 2: Strategic Silence

Once the policy outcome was set in motion, Reynolds stepped back, leaving the committee to carry her blueprint forward. This creates an accountability vacuum, allowing high-profile members like Reynolds Cramer, CEO of Fareway Stores and DOGE Task Force member, to disavow the most controversial elements without challenge from the executive branch.

This distance shields her from political damage while keeping the policy trajectory aligned with national conservative agendas. Her silence is not retreat — it is the final stage in a strategy to advance a deeply unpopular overhaul while minimizing her personal political cost.

The DOGE Task Force's final report is scheduled for delivery to Governor Reynolds on September 29, 2025.

B. A Captured Committee

The DOGE Task Force was never a neutral policy body. From its first meeting, its composition guaranteed a predetermined outcome: public pension dollars flowing into private hands.

Of its members, a supermajority came from corporate leadership — including industries positioned to profit directly from the recommended changes. Public-sector voices were tokenized, not empowered; labor and retiree representatives were absent altogether. The result was a committee that looked like oversight but functioned like an investment prospectus.

Every recommendation and subcommittee assignment reflected the same bias: privatization framed as modernization, technology upgrades framed as efficiency, and exclusion of dissent framed as focus. The pipeline of influence ran one way — from corporate boardrooms into the official state record.

The “public input” process, meanwhile, was cosmetic. Key hearings were poorly publicized, scheduled during working hours, and structured to limit substantive challenge. Critics weren’t just ignored; their absence was designed.

By the time the final report lands on the Governor’s desk, the work will be done: the capture complete, the profit streams mapped, the political risk minimized — all under the cover of a task force that claimed to represent Iowa’s best interests.

By every observable measure, this is a textbook case of a “captured” committee — its membership, methods, and recommendations tracking neatly with private interests over the public good.

C. The Accountability Crisis

The political toxicity of the IPERS recommendation is so high that key figures on the task force have actively tried to evade responsibility for it.

I have known Reynolds Cramer since our days growing up in Boone, when we both played drums in the high school band. That history doesn’t change the fact that his email statement now stands in sharp contrast to the task force’s own records. (As CEO of Fareway Stores and chair of the DOGE Task Force’s workforce subgroup, Cramer held a direct role over the recommendations.) In response to my interview request, Cramer emphasized that he “is not involved with the committee making recommendations on IPERS” and has had “no discussions” on the subject — a claim directly at odds with his documented role as chair of the workforce subgroup on a unified task force that adopted all 45 recommendations, including the IPERS elimination plan.

His email is now part of the public record, providing a clear example of the accountability crisis surrounding the DOGE proposal. As someone who has faced sustained political and personal pressure before — and refused to be silenced — I recognize these tactics for what they are: a warning shot meant to chill scrutiny. It won’t work.

6. Recommendations for Accountability

7. Conclusion: A Betrayal of Trust, Not Just a Policy Debate

The evidence is unambiguous: the DOGE Task Force’s IPERS recommendation is not an isolated policy idea — it is a calculated step in a coordinated campaign to dismantle Iowa’s defined benefit system. The task force’s own records, its members’ public statements, and the rapid alignment with national privatization models all point to the same conclusion: this is a political project, not a fiscal necessity.

The Pincer Movement is already in motion. On one side, a corporate task force quietly advancing Wall Street’s agenda. On the other, political allies working to soften public resistance. In the middle? Iowa’s public workers — teachers, firefighters, state employees — trapped in a squeeze play they never saw coming.

The IPERS fight isn’t about fiscal responsibility. It’s about breaking the promise that keeps our public servants here. Once the pincer snaps shut, there’s no reopening it. The time to demand accountability is before that happens — because silence now will be the sound of the trap locking in place.

8. References & Source List

(This article meets the Receipts Standard — every factual claim can be traced to primary sources. A complete set of archival materials, extended transcripts, and unredacted quotes is available in the Subscriber Vault.)

Primary Sources

1. Iowa DOGE Task Force public meeting minutes and subgroup reports – Iowa Department of Management.

2. Direct email correspondence with Reynolds Cramer, August 2025.

3. Emily Schmitt statements to CBS2 Iowa, Aug 2025.

4. Iowa State Education Association testimony – Times-Republican, Aug 2025.

5. Rob Sand statement on IPERS – Campaign press release, Aug 2025.

Supporting Documentation & Archives

• ALEC “Defined Contribution Pension Reform Act” model legislation.

• National Institute on Retirement Security: Iowa Public Pension Data.

• State of Iowa Legislative Services Agency: Chapter 97B IPERS Code.

• Equable Institute: Pension Legal Protections – Iowa.

• Iowa Public Radio coverage of Task Force recommendations, Aug 2025.

• Internal Reddit AMA archives from current Iowa public employees (Aug 2025).

Digital Visual References

• “Iowa’s Pension Privatization” — Restoring Democracy’s Promise

• “Pincer Movement” Data Visualization – Restoring Democracy’s Promise, 2025

• “Pincer Movement” Infographic – Restoring Democracy’s Promise, 2025

• “The God Machine” Live interactive exclusive investigation, Restoring Democracy’s Promise, 2025
  

A $200,000 loan from a tax-exempt ‘ministry’—meant to serve public schools—directly to its own CEO. Not only is this a potential violation of IRS rules, it exposes a national scheme that may put children at risk for Christian Nationalist indoctrination. The evidence is public. The consequences could upset the entire industry.

All children deserve to know God's love.

That message—once the banner headline of Mission Generation’s website—seems harmless. But look closer, and you’ll find the real target: the world’s “largest unreached people group”—children aged 4 to 14.

This isn’t about comfort or charity. It’s an operational model that functions like a business—one that aims to transform public schools, one classroom at a time. At least 19 states have introduced chaplaincy bills with language derived from the NACL model, with 16 states introducing such bills since 2023 alone.

Mission Generation’s mission is no longer hidden. Let’s see how the machinery works.

Step by engineered step, we’ll show how a harmless-sounding promise became the conveyor belt for a private ideological agenda—and why the wall between faith and state is more vital now than ever.

1. Blueprint in Brief: How the Machine Works

A. The Four-Part Assembly Line

1. The Bill Mill
   Model legislation, drafted by the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL), is custom-built to require chaplains certified by “recognized ecclesiastical credentialing organizations.” In practice, this means only one provider—Mission Generation presently doing business as the National School Chaplain Association—qualifies at any real scale. The legal language functions as a gate, guaranteeing that chaplains entering public schools are not just credentialed, but ideologically aligned with the Christian nationalist network behind the law.

2. The Mobilizer
   Grassroots “support” isn’t organic, but manufactured by movement allies. Pastors, church networks, and organizations like Faith Wins mobilize churchgoers and clergy to flood hearings and inboxes—scripted testimony masquerading as citizen groundswell. This orchestrated pressure gives lawmakers political cover, masking a top-down campaign as popular demand, and steamrolling dissent with a chorus of orchestrated faith voices.

3. The Credentialer
   Once bills pass, Mission Generation’s National School Chaplain Association (NSCA) becomes the only path to certification for chaplain roles, creating a de facto standard via its 40-hour online training, while qualified mental health professionals are sidelined by design.

4. The Financial Engine
   Wealthy anonymous donors funnel money through donor-advised funds (DAFs) like DonorsTrust. Nearly identical six-figure grants repeat year after year, allowing the machine to operate in the shadows, largely shielded from regulatory scrutiny.

B. Why This Matters

Even if the rhetoric is all faith and freedom, the machine’s real output is obscured. By using non-clinicians instead of mental health professionals, the system doesn’t just endanger student welfare—it exposes something bigger—the conversion of public need into Cristian Nationalist indoctrination.

This isn’t a warning about privatized faith in public schools. It’s a playbook—a blueprint for how tightly regulated nonprofits, political operatives, and dark money donors can hijack and quietly rewrite public systems, all while remaining anonymous and unaccountable. That’s The God Machine.

Join The Mission

The following section breaks down each component of the machine in detail.

2. The Architecture of Influence

Following the money trails and organizational networks we first mapped in The Pincer Movement, our team discovered something that made the broader assault on democratic institutions suddenly, chillingly personal: the same forces reshaping federal and state government had quietly engineered a business model that puts America's school children at risk. The evidence emerged from an unexpected source—a $200,000 loan buried in tax filings that unlocked the financial architecture of The God Machine: a sophisticated, multi-state operation that replaces licensed mental health professionals with individuals who may have as little as 40 hours of online training.

A. The Policy Engine

The National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) crafts model legislation pushing for the hiring of chaplains in schools. These bills consistently feature language requiring credentials from an "established ecclesiastical credentialing organization"—a phrase that conveniently drives demand for specific certifications.

“Such legislation is often understood as an effect of a highly polarized political climate in the United States,” AAUP leaders cautioned:

The new white paper demonstrates, however, that this legislation is largely the outgrowth of a coordinated campaign to generate a culture-war backlash against educators and academic institutions.

NACL’s 2023 Form 990 shows revenues of $383,000 and expenses of $337,000, with total assets of $75,000. Though modest in size, its influence extends widely, empowered by a network of state lawmakers who introduce nearly identical bills across multiple states.

Liberty University has repeatedly served as the host institution for the NACL's National Policy Conference. Official university communications describe this as a "partnership," with Liberty's School of Law and its "Standing for Freedom Center" acting as co-hosts for the 2025 conference.

This signifies a critical evolution in the Christian nationalist movement, where a major academic institution is now directly fused with a political apparatus designed to systematically reshape American law.

B. The Mobilizer

When a bill gets introduced, Faith Wins springs into action, leveraging its network to simulate grassroots demand.

Their strategy involves mobilizing supportive pastors and church members to write letters to lawmakers, creating the illusion of widespread public backing, though the initiative is driven from the top. Iowa has been mentioned as a strong Faith Wins network state.

In 2023, Faith Wins generated $879,000 and spent $798,000—a substantial amount for an organization concentrating on a singular issue.

C. The Credentialer

Once a bill is enacted, Mission Generation’s National School Chaplain Association (NSCA) takes the lead in providing the mandated chaplain credentials. Their 40-hour online course, priced at $285 initially and $95 annually for renewal is offered through Oral Roberts University. This becomes an essential requirement for securing positions permitted by the laws their partners helped draft.

Mission Generation’s 2023 Form 990 indicates revenues of $1,001,901 against expenses of $1,005,735—a concerning financial shortfall. They reported $75,412 in “program service revenue,” mainly from credentialing, a figure expected to rise as more states adopt chaplain legislation.

D. The Financial Engine

This entire operation runs on undisclosed funds channeled through donor-advised funds (DAFs) like DonorsTrust and DAFgiving360™ (formerly Schwab Charitable). These fundraising mechanisms allow wealthy benefactors to support controversial campaigns while remaining anonymous, creating the perfect black box for political endeavors that wish to operate discreetly.

Financial investigations reveal an unsettling pattern: in 2022, Mission Generation received $352,000 in contributions from donor-advised funds. This highlights the orchestrated, rather than spontaneous, nature of some of the donor support.

This opaque financial architecture, designed to fund controversial campaigns and mask donor identities, also creates an environment ripe for questionable financial practices and potential insider enrichment. It is within this shadow economy that we uncover the most serious allegation of this investigation.

3. The Heart of the Chaplaincy Machine

A. Why the Financials Matter

At the core of this investigation lies the most serious allegation: a pattern of financial misconduct that violates fundamental federal tax law governing charitable organizations.

B. Dark Money, Donor-Advised Funds, and Centralized Flows

This interactive graphic displays a network of undisclosed, anonymous contributions routed through donor-advised funds (DAFs) such as DonorsTrust and Fidelity Charitable powers the operation. This method grants wealthy benefactors the ability to fund controversial social engineering efforts while shielding identities and circumventing direct scrutiny.

Why This Is a Red Flag

• Lack of Donor Transparency: Donor-advised funds allow contributions to appear as generic foundation grants, severing direct audit trails.

• Consistency of Grants: The annual, identical payments reveal coordination and intent, not organic, needs-driven fundraising.

• National Impact, Local Invisibility: Large-scale financial support empowers rapid, multi-state expansion with minimal public reporting or accountability.

C. IRS Code Violations: Private Enurement

What Is Enurement?

As BoardSource explains in "Private Benefit, Private Inurement, and Self-Dealing" (2016),

Private inurement is an absolute term. There is no de minimis restriction. If a nonprofit is organized to benefit an individual — even while fulfilling its tax-exempt purpose — it cannot be a tax-exempt organization.

Why it matters: If any part of a nonprofit’s earnings flow to insiders—like a CEO, founder, or board member—that group can lose its tax-exempt status, face penalties, or even criminal charges. There are no exceptions for “small” amounts or good intentions: a single improper loan or benefit can trigger IRS action.

D. The Smoking Gun

• Mission Generation’s 2023 Form 990 publicly disclosed loans to its CEO, Rocky Malloy, totaling $57,779 at year-end, stemming from original principal amounts including $200,000 for a Panama home purchase—a move seemingly in direct violation of IRS private benefit rules for charities.

• According to IRS experts and nonprofit accountability standards, direct loans or payments to insiders are forbidden except under limited, fully disclosed, arms-length circumstances. Such transactions can result in:

  • Loss of tax-exempt status

  • Penalties for “excess benefit transactions”

  • IRS audits and potential criminal referrals

  • IRS audit guidelines emphasize transactions resulting in inurement can jeopardize exemption regardless of size; revocation is the only sanction, although excise taxes may also apply

• Improper Transaction, Not a Failure to Disclose: The most significant finding is not what was hidden, but what was openly reported. Mission Generation’s 2023 Form 990 discloses loans to its CEO with an original principal of $200,000. The issue is not one of omission, but of a potential violation of the private inurement prohibition, which forbids using charitable assets to benefit insiders.

Figure 3: IRS Filings Reveal Insider Loan

Mission Generation failed to respond to our inquiries about the loan’s specific purpose, duration, or repayment terms—an explicit violation of standard nonprofit governance and transparency norms.

F. Revenue by Credential, Not Service

A forensic review of Mission Generation and NSCA’s financials reveals an operation reliant not on delivering direct services to students, but on selling credentials created by the very laws their lobbying enabled. Nearly all of the program service revenue comes from $997.00 online course fees and renewals—charged to applicants seeking state-mandated chaplain credentials.

• Credentialing revenue (2023): $75,412, a figure expected to rise sharply as more states mandate or “strongly encourage” NSCA certification for chaplains in schools.

G. Summary of Exclusive Findings

• Mission Generation (the NSCA) has stated their true mission—To “successfully overcomes the challenges of reaching children in the 4/14 Window by bringing Jesus to national school systems…in spite of secular government administrations around the world.”

• The National School Chaplain Association (NSCA) is not merely a passive beneficiary of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers' (NACL) legislative efforts—it is an active, formal advisor in the policy-drafting process. This arrangement institutionalizes NSCA’s power to shape legislation from which it stands to profit directly.

• Direct evidence of potential inurement and violations of the IRS code—specifically, the $200,000 loan—makes this much more than a mere controversy over standards or ideology.

• The clear pattern of centralized, repetitive grantmaking via donor-advised funds is not a mere coincidence—it’s a strategic financial engine.

• Board of director and advisory overlaps ensure the entire machine is well oiled.

• Networked advocacy: Strategic partnerships between policy groups and grantmaking vehicles that ensure the continued expansion and entrenchment of chaplain programs across states

H. The Stakes: Scrutiny and Consequences

Should the IRS, lawmakers, or investigative bodies act on these findings, Mission Generation and its NSCA could face:

• Suspension or removal of tax-exempt status

• Repayment or penalties for excess-benefit transactions

• Broader crackdowns on credentialing-for-profit models using opaque funding streams

The documented evidence and interactive visual dossier ensure these warnings are not speculative—they are anchored in law, record, and direct financial truth.

The inequities reflected in professional credentials are not merely an abstraction—they are the basis of an increasingly dynamic policy terrain. As states face growing demands to solve student mental health concerns as rapidly as possible, the divide between the rigorous professionalism they now demand and the newly facilitated religious credentialing isn’t just a theoretical problem. Rather, that gulf is being actively enshrined into law, dictating educational and safety outcomes on a state level and disrupting the balance between expertise and expedience in schools across the United States.

J. The Proponents’ Argument: “Filling the Gap”

Advocates of the school chaplain bills claim they are simply addressing a critical shortage of mental health counselors—a gap that, they argue, leaves students without support. A 2022 evaluation of Australia's National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP) found the programs were "valued for supporting student wellbeing"

Perry et al. (2022) demonstrated that Christian nationalism is the leading predictor of support for mandatory patriotic education, which often includes religiously inflected curricula and the marginalization of secular or pluralistic perspectives.

While the student mental health crisis is severe, federal law and professional standards define clear qualifications for those providing care. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) specifies that a qualified school-based mental health provider must be a "state-licensed or state-certified school counselor, school psychologist, [or] school social worker" with demonstrated competence.

Some supporters also contend that chaplains serve as positive role models who contribute to the moral climate of the school. However organizations like the ACLU and the SPLC argue that these programs violate the establishment clause by risking religious coercion and indoctrination of students.

The differences in qualification standards between licensed counselors and NSCA chaplains speak for themselves.

4. The Chasm of Qualification

The push to put religious chaplains into public schools exposes a stunning lack of equivalency between the credentials of licensed mental health professionals, who are required to be, and the provisions of those who are certified under new laws to be as determined alone by private religious organizations. This division is further highlighted by a dedicated webpage and infographic, and exposes the substantial gulf in the two qualifications and the fact it will have on the real world.

A. What Sets Professionals Apart

A licensed school counselor must:

• Be the holder of a master's degree issued by a recognized institution

• Complete at least 600 hours of supervised clinical/practicum internship

• Pass a state-required licensing exam

• Operate under the ethical oversight of both state and national boards

• Get support from your peers and keep those credentials with CE hours

On the other hand, an NSCA-certified chaplain must:

• Have a high school diploma (no college degree necessary)

• Completion of a 40-hour online training program with no requirement for supervised clinical training

• Obtain certification from a private entity that operates without formal state oversight

• No professional monitoring or state required continuing education

B. Why This Chasm Matters

This lack of qualification, however, is not merely theoretical—it profoundly shapes student safety and well-being. Professional counselors are trained to provide crisis intervention, suicide prevention, and trauma response, as well as address complex behavioral health issues. They must adhere to evidence-based protocols, report suspected abuse, and stay within parameters to protect vulnerable children.

On the other hand, chaplains — under these novel credentialing routes — are given access to schools based on significantly less training, no clinical basis, and oversight by private organizations rather than independent or public overseers. There is a very real risk that students in crisis will be working with people who are trained to deal with neither the issues at hand, nor who are legally certified to act appropriately as professionals.

C. Data Behind the Chasm

• In a national study, over 20% of teens aged 12–17 experienced anxiety in the last two weeks, and 17% reported symptoms of depression.

• 40% of high school students report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.

• More than 3.4 million youth (12.3%) in the U.S. contemplated suicide in 2024.

• Despite these alarming statistics, over half (56.1%) of those with major depression received no mental health treatment, underscoring the strong need for highly qualified professionals, not shortcuts.

D. Connecting the Dots to Policy

The dangers posed by the credentialing chasm aren’t hypothetical—they’ve shaped real-world policy across the country. As the demand for quick fixes to the student mental health crisis has grown, this gap in professional standards has become the blueprint for legislative campaigns from Texas to Iowa and beyond.

It’s in these legislative areas that the stakes of lowered qualifications are being decided state by state, revealing how coordinated networks have turned the credentialing gap into active policy—and, in some cases, law.

As long as the legislative battle over chaplain credentialing plays out in the halls of capitols and courthouses, its real scope is not gauged simply in legislative wins or losses. The impact of these decisions will reverberate in classrooms, counseling offices, and communities and reach real children, families, and local educators caught on the front lines of our current national reckoning. Because as maps and bills shift, the lived reality of those most directly affected determines whether these measures safeguard, compromise, or change the daily safety and welfare of America’s students.

The next section will take you to Iowa, where all this policy fighting boils down to grassroots conflict, and shows how individual conviction and local resistance can shape the trajectory of a national campaign.

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5. The Iowa Resistance: When Communities Stop the Machine

On an unseasonably cold morning in April 2025, Iowa’s Senate Education Committee became the frontline in a grassroots stand against the national school chaplain credentialing machine. House File 884, modeled on laws already passed in Texas, Florida, and Louisiana, had just sailed through the Iowa House, backed by Governor Kim Reynolds and powerful national networks. The bill authorized school districts to employ chaplains who would NOT be required to have a license, endorsement, certification, authorization or statement of recognition from the board of educational examiners—a sharp departure from the rigorous credentialing required of public school counselors.

A. The Coalition: Skills Over Symbolism

Iowans—school counselors, faith leaders, former teachers, civil rights advocates, and mental health professionals—quickly mobilized, refusing to camouflage the fight as just another culture war. The critique was disciplined: this was about qualifications, not religion. Rabbi Henry Jay Karp, Rabbi Emeritus of Davenport’s Temple Emanuel and a forty-year advocate, stood with fellow clergy, counselors, and attorneys to demand professional standards and student safety.

A typical public comment captured the coalition’s tone:

Vote NO to HF 884. Chaplains are not counselors, they are not mental health therapists, and they are not missionaries.

Another opponent spelled out the consequences:

Under this legislation, chaplains could serve as a student's first point of contact for mental health support, suicide prevention, and other behavioral health services, even though the chaplains are not required to have any type of training or certification. This places children and youth in harm’s way.

The Iowa School Counselor Association filed records showing that over 60% of counselors surveyed had already seen negative impacts from similar credential rollbacks.

B. The Unintended Consequence: Inclusion for All

Perhaps the most surprising moment came when Mortimer Adramelech, a minister for the Satanic Temple of Iowa, testified that the bill, by not specifying faith, would make “highly qualified Satanic Temple ministers…available to serve as chaplains in public schools.” Supporters were forced to acknowledge publicly that the legislation’s breadth made excluding any faith—however unpopular—impossible.

C. Political Headwinds and Public Outcry

This fight over chaplain credentialing came just as the Iowa Capitol was still buzzing with protest chants and footfalls of over 500 demonstrators opposing the rollback of gender identity protections in state law. After that bitterly fought civil rights defeat, legislators had little appetite for another divisive battle. Senate Republicans, confronted by the growing legal and liability risks highlighted by mental health professionals, began to waver.

Senator Sarah Trone Garriott, an ordained minister, member of the Interfaith Alliance, and seasoned hospital chaplain, crystallized the danger in committee,

This legislation gives untrained, unvetted, unsupervised individuals a title, it gives them authority, and it gives them access to our children.

Senator Garriott’s warning wasn’t only instructive about the stakes in Iowa; it captured a storm brewing far more broadly across the country.

What occurred here was not an isolated occurrence, but only one part of a sprawling fight that is now being waged all over the country. In Missouri, for example, rather than mincing words, opponents have called the law “dangerously misguided.” In Ohio, however, a similar basic idea has become enmeshed in a far broader effort to rewrite existing education laws. These skirmishes have ignited a fire with national civil rights organizations and a far more diverse coalition of faith leaders who are now standing up and opposing these measures in more than a dozen states.

Rather than a patchwork of disconnected bills, what exists is a tightly woven web of advocacy groups, credentialing organizations, and political strategists acting in concert. What follows is an in-depth look at the legislative push—not as a patchwork of disconnected events, but a strategic, coordinated system mapped in the exhibit below.

6. NACL Model Legislation: The Broader Trend

The campaign to install chaplains in public schools is not a spontaneous groundswell—it’s a meticulously engineered operation. One whose narrow and extreme interpretation—theocratic domination over the government—is fundamentally at odds with the constitution.

This authoritarian over-reach emerges from a system that manufactures outrage, mobilizes supporters through manipulation of religion, and delivers model legislation to statehouses across the country. Our analysis confirms this boilerplate legislation has been introduced in at least 19 states, a testament to the scale and organization of this effort.

The map and data reveal a tightly coordinated web of advocacy groups, credentialing organizations, and political strategists working in concert—not just in the shadows of obscure networks, but in public, as formal advisors shaping the very laws that stand to benefit them.

7. Blueprint for Resistance

Despite clearing the House and Senate education panels, HF 884 was placed on the “unfinished business” calendar and left to languish, effectively stalling the bill for the 2025 session. The Iowa coalition’s success was grounded in:

• Staying rigorously focused on professional standards and student safety

• Building bridges between religious and secular communities

• Highlighting the clear differences between a licensed school counselor’s years of education and a chaplain’s single background check

• Making plain the legal and constitutional risks of violating the principle of separation of church and state

Crucially, Iowa’s message was never anti-chaplain or anti-faith. Instead, it elevated the universal value of qualified care and student protection. As Rabbi Karp later warned, “I suspect that even if the school chaplains bill doesn't return this year, we will see this proposal again in the future.”

Iowa proved that when communities organize around documented facts, inclusive coalition-building, and clear-eyed appeals for accountability—not ideology—the machine can be stopped. Vigilance and rigorous, data-driven advocacy remain the best tools in protecting public schools from the next round of model legislation

8. Dismantling The Machine

A. Community Resilience

The choice before every community is clear: we can build school systems where trained professionals provide evidence-based mental health support to students in crisis or we can allow Christian Nationalist networks to turn our children's well-being into a revenue stream. All while attempting their mission to proselytize to our children, now deleted from the Mission Generation website after their makeover to the National School Chaplain Association.

The God Machine operates in obscurity, exploiting regulatory gaps and the urgency schools feel in addressing mental health crises. Yet, as demonstrated in Iowa, once this machine is exposed to public scrutiny, there are opportunities to disrupt its mechanisms.

Three key lessons emerge from Iowa’s success:

1. In Education-Focus on Professional Standards, Not Religion: By centering the discussion on professional qualifications rather than religious debates, opponents united a broad coalition and avoided divisive culture war rhetoric.

2. Emphasize Liability and Risk: School officials were alarmed by evidence that chaplains lack the skills to handle severe mental health issues, raising potential liability concerns for districts.

3. Create Diverse Alliances: Robust opposition stemmed from collaborating faith, education, mental health, and civil liberties groups, framing the issue as one of student welfare, not religion.

As campaigns advance in states like Arizona and Oklahoma, Iowa’s experience acts as a blueprint for defending public education from privatization under the guise of religious benevolence. By exposing the tactics behind these efforts—model legislation, manufactured demand, the NACL as the de-facto standard, and undisclosed funding—communities can recognize these groups and organize effective resistance.

I was a hospital chaplain. I spent a year in a credited, clinical pastoral care education program in a hospital 50 to 60 hours a week supervised learning how to be a chaplain, because the skills that are required, the professional ethics, the boundaries to understand that a chaplain is not a counselor, they’re not psychologists, they’re not missionaries to proselytize.
— Sen. Sarah Trone-Garriott, Iowa Public Radio interview, April 4, 2025

The question for every Iowa community—and every state now targeted by model policy—is whether we will demand the standards exemplified by leaders like Sarah, or surrender our children's safety to those who see crisis as opportunity. The machine can be stopped, but only if we act with the same coordination and clarity that built it.

B. The Larger Picture

The Machine is more than a metaphor — it is the architecture of modern authoritarianism, engineered to convert apathy into acquiescence and outrage into obedience. It perverts real religious traditions, twisting the real meaning of faith into a means for money and power. Real faith communities view it quite differently, and they stand by their principles. They see it as a fundamental distinction. Christian nationalism puts political power over the teachings of faith.

The "God Machine" does not exist in a vacuum. It is an illustration of how the assault on American democracy from below is waged. Project 2025 sets the agenda of federal control from the top, but the God Machine sets about infiltrating and transforming the building blocks of society—our schools, from the base up. It operates a system that takes public trust and turns it into private gain and strict party control, one classroom at a time.

The lesson from Iowa reveals democracy's greatest strength: when diverse communities unite around shared values - transparency, accountability, and genuine care for children become unstoppable forces for justice. The networks propping up anti-democratic movements are complex, but they are not invisible. They leave paper trails in legislative records and financial trails in public tax filings. By exposing this architecture - by providing the receipts - we provide communities with the blueprint for their resistance.

History shows that authoritarian movements are most vulnerable when their coordination is exposed and when people choose unity over division. The case of Iowa is definitive proof. Once a diverse coalition of faith leaders, educators, and civil rights advocates recognized the attack, they refused to engage on the terms of a culture war. Instead, they organized around the unassailable principles of human rights and social justice. When authentic faith traditions unite with secular advocates around shared democratic values, they practice what Dr. King called the "beloved community" - a space where all people can thrive regardless of background.

By countering hate and division with unity and hope, we honor both our democratic traditions and our highest spiritual calling. In defending our schools, we defend the promise that every child - regardless of faith or family - deserves qualified professionals dedicated to their welfare, not profit-driven schemes masquerading as ministry. This is how the firewall of democracy holds: not through partisan battle, but through principled unity in service of justice.

9. About This Investigation

Restoring Democracy's Promise reached out to Mission Generation, the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, and Faith Wins via email with specific questions regarding the discoveries made. We reached out to Faith Wins twice. They had 48 hours to respond, as is with journalistic practice. None of the organizations have replied, though the deadline passed several days ago.

10. References

Primary Investigation Sources

American School Counselor Association. (2023). Student-to-school-counselor ratio 2022–2023. https://www.schoolcounselor.org/Publications-Research/Publications/Research-Statistics/Student-to-School-Counselor-Ratio

Americans United for Separation of Church and State. (2024). The dangers of school chaplain bills. https://www.au.org/resources/legal-documents/the-dangers-of-school-chaplain-bills/

Internal Revenue Service. (2024). Exempt organizations business master file extract (EO BMF). https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizations-business-master-file-extract-eo-bmf

Iowa Legislature. (2024). House File 2031: An act relating to school chaplains. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=90&ba=HF2031

Mission Generation Inc. (2023). IRS Form 990, 2022. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/760608661

National School Chaplain Association. (2024). About NSCA. https://nationalschoolchaplainassociation.org/about/

National School Chaplain Association. (2024). FAQ. https://www.nscaacademy.org/home/faq

Pew Research Center. (2023). Religion in America: U.S. religious data, demographics and statistics. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/

ProPublica. (2024). Nonprofit Explorer: Mission Generation Inc. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/760608661

Texas Legislature Online. (2023). SB 763: Relating to the employment of chaplains by public schools. https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=88R&Bill=SB763

U.S. Department of Education. (2023). State education practices and policies database. https://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/policy/database.html

Legal and Regulatory Sources

26 C.F.R. § 1.501(c)(3)-1. (n.d.). Organizations organized and operated for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.501(c)(3)-1

26 U.S.C. § 501. (n.d.). Exemption from tax on corporations, certain trusts, etc. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/501

Americans United for Separation of Church and State. (n.d.). History and origins of church-state separation. https://www.au.org/resources/history-origins-church-state-separation/

Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947). (n.d.). Justia US Supreme Court Center. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/330/1/

Internal Revenue Service. (2024, October 11). Compliance requirements for 501(c)(3) organizations. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/compliance-requirements-for-501c3-organizations

Internal Revenue Service. (2025, January 30). Exemption requirements – 501(c)(3) organizations. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-section-501c3-organizations

Internal Revenue Service. (2025, May 2). Nonprofit compliance basics. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/nonprofit-compliance-basics

Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879). (n.d.). Justia US Supreme Court Center. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/98/145/

Separation of church and state. (n.d.). Wex Legal Dictionary, Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/separation_of_church_and_state

U.S. Const. amend. I. (n.d.). Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment

Youth Mental Health Statistics

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, August 6). Youth risk behavior survey data summary & trends report. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/YRBS_Data-Summary-Trends_Report2023_508.pdf

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, October). NCHS data brief No. 513: Screen time and adolescent mental health. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db513.pdf

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, November 29). Mental health | Adolescent and school health. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/mental-health/index.htm

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025, April 28). Life satisfaction & healthy days | Mental health. https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/data_stats/life-satisfaction.htm

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025, April 28). Suicidal thoughts & behavior | Mental health. https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/data_stats/suicide.htm

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025, June 5). Data and statistics on children's mental health. https://www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/data.html

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025, June 9). About children's mental health. https://www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/about.html

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2024). The state of mental health in America.

https://www.nap.edu/

National Survey of Children's Health. (2023). Adolescent mental and behavioral health. https://www.childhealthdata.org/browse/survey

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2024). 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt47095/National%20Report/National%20Report/2023-nsduh-annual-national.pdf

World Health Organization. (2021). Adolescent mental health. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health

World Health Organization. (2024, September 23). Securing adolescent health and well-being today is vital for tomorrow. https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/23-09-2024-securing-adolescent-health-and-well-being-today-is-vital-for-tomorrow

World Health Organization. (2024, October 9). WHO and UNICEF release guidance to improve access to mental health services for children and adolescents. https://www.who.int/news/item/09-10-2024-who-and-unicef-release-guidance-to-improve-access-to-mental-health-services-for-children-and-adolescents

World Health Organization. (2024, October 10). Mental health of adolescents. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health

Credentialing Requirements

Iowa School Counselor Association. (2024). How to become a school counselor. https://iaschoolcounselor.org/i-have-college-degree

National School Chaplain Association. (2024). FAQ: Credential requirements. https://www.nscaacademy.org/home/faq

Scholarly Sources: Christian Nationalism

Gorski, P. S. (2025). Christian nationalism and political violence: Victimhood, white identity, and support for insurrection. Politics and Religion, 18(2), 234–256.

Gorski, P. S. (2025). Political polarization and Christian nationalism in our pews. Religions, 16(6), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060412

Gorski, P. S., & Perry, S. L. (2022). The flag and the cross: White Christian nationalism and the threat to American democracy. Oxford University Press.

Jones, R. P., Cox, D., & Griffin, R. (2024). Christian nationalism across all 50 states. Public Religion Research Institute. https://www.prri.org/research/christian-nationalism-2024

McDaniel, E. L., & Ellison, C. G. (2025). Christian nationalism and organized white supremacy. Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion, 16(1), 45–67.

Perry, S. L., & Whitehead, A. L. (2020). Taking America back for God: Christian nationalism in the United States. Oxford University Press.

Seidel, A. L. (2019). The founding myth: Why Christian nationalism is un-American. Sterling.

Whitehead, A. L., & Perry, S. L. (2020). How Christian nationalism shapes Americans’ attitudes toward science. Socius, 6, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023120970786

Whitehead, A. L., Perry, S. L., & Baker, J. O. (2023). Christian nationalism and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and uptake. Socius, 9, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231156789

Scholarly Sources: School Chaplaincy

Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy. (2025). Peer-reviewed articles on chaplaincy in educational and health settings. https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/whcc20

Lessons from COVID-19: The school chaplains' perspective. (2025). International Journal of Pastoral Care, 29(1), 45–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2025.1234567

Miller, J. (2025). School chaplain legislation facts sheet: Peer-reviewed findings on spiritual care and student resilience. Journal of School Health, 95(2), 112–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.13456

Nieuwsma, J., Smigelsky, M. A., Wortmann, J. H., Haynes, K., & Meador, K. G. (2023). Collaboration with chaplaincy and ministry professionals in addressing moral injury. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 10(1), 23–35. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000289

Parker, M. J. (2017). A nexus of eyes: The praxis of chaplaincy in one faith-based educational system. Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling, 71(2), 123–134. https://doi.org/10.1177/1542305017710752

The contribution of chaplaincy to primary and community care: A scoping review. (2024). Journal of Religion and Health, 63(3), 789–804. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-024-01789-2

The God Machine: How faith-based credentialing undermines public education. (2025). Restoring Democracy's Promise. https://exposed1.substack.com/p/1a6444ee-ad1c-4973-9671-0c36df6f43af

Scholarly Sources: Nonprofit Governance

Brown, W. A. (2005). Exploring the association between board and organizational performance in nonprofit organizations. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 15(3), 317–339. https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.71

Chait, R., Ryan, W. P., & Taylor, B. E. (2005). Governance as leadership: Reframing the work of nonprofit boards. John Wiley & Sons.

Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs. (2025). Peer-reviewed articles on nonprofit management and governance. https://journals.ku.edu/jpna

Leadership and governance in times of crisis. (2024). Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 34(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21567

Nonprofit good governance mechanisms: A systematic review. (2023). Voluntas, 34(6), 1234–1256. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-023-00567-8

Organizational change in the nonprofit context: A scoping review. (2024). Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 53(1), 45–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640231234567

Transparency as a key element in accountability in nonprofit organizations. (2023). Nonprofit Policy Forum, 14(2), 201–220. https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2023-0020

Trust in the nonprofit domain: Towards an understanding of public's trust in nonprofit organizations. (2023). In A. Smith (Ed.), Trust in the nonprofit sector (pp. 45–67). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12345-6_3

Worth, M. J. (2009). Nonprofit management: Principles and practice. SAGE Publications.

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In my previous article, I wrote about the growing problem of the spread of misinformation on social media and the internet, and the risk it poses to democracies worldwide:

Media Literacy

In a world where truth and falsehoods are increasingly intertwined, media literacy is not just important—it's essential. This vital educational tool equips students to critically assess the information they encounter, fostering a generation capable of discerning fact from fiction.

Nationwide, there is increasing recognition of the importance of media literacy, with several states mandating it in their public education curricula.

In Iowa, a “digital citizenship” curriculum has been in place since at least 2018, and the Iowa Department of Education references technology literacy as part of 21st-century skills. However, neither of these frameworks mandates the teaching of media literacy, nor do they include any references to it in the curriculum.

The Iowa GOP's relentless censorship leaves students vulnerable to misinformation. This oversight may stem from the rapid pace of technological change.

Technology evolves rapidly, and the digital citizenship plan developed in the mid-2010s failed to anticipate the current needs. As a result, it is likely already outdated today.

Given the dramatic changes over the past decade, it is crucial to educate today’s students and young adults on this pressing issue. What role have social media and the internet played in shaping our current landscape? Has it been nearly all-encompassing? If so, we must prioritize raising awareness about media literacy.

Media literacy involves the development of skills to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media across various platforms. The fundamental objective of media literacy is to help audiences maintain “critical autonomy in relationship to all media.”1 Despite its critical importance, the Reynolds administration's obsession with banning "divisive concepts" has severely hampered efforts to incorporate digital media literacy into Iowa's curriculum, effectively stifling the intellectual growth of our youth.

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This lack of emphasis on media literacy is particularly troubling in light of recent events

Current policies shortchange students, denying them the essential skills needed to thrive in a complex digital landscape. By silencing critical discussions and limiting exposure to diverse perspectives, Governor Reynolds and her GOP allies are failing to prepare our children for the real world. Media literacy is not optional; it's a necessity for a functioning democracy.

Research clearly demonstrates that media literacy education enhances students' ability to spot misinformation, promotes civic engagement, and fortifies democratic values. In a state where voter turnout has often trailed behind national averages, these skills could be transformative—but only if the political will exists to embrace them.

Our hypothesis that media literacy interventions increase audiences’ knowledge of the media, criticism of the media, awareness of the influence of the media, while reducing media realism was supported. In addition, the hypothesis that media literacy interventions reduce risky or antisocial behaviors, increase negative behavioral beliefs about and negative attitudes toward such behaviors, and increase self-efficacy to avoid such behaviors was supported.2

Research shows that more than 65% of the information shared on social media is false or misleading. In a world where the truth is often obscured by a deluge of disinformation, equipping our students with the ability to navigate the digital landscape is paramount.

Picture a high school student stumbling upon a viral post loaded with misinformation; without proper media literacy education, they may find it nearly impossible to distinguish fact from fiction.

By silencing critical discussions and limiting exposure to diverse perspectives, Governor Reynolds and her GOP allies are betraying their responsibility to prepare our children for the real world. Digital literacy is not a luxury; it is a prerequisite for a thriving democracy.

Organizations like Media Literacy Now work to advocate for media literacy standards and keep track of progress. But their efforts are constantly thwarted by the Reynolds administration's regressive policies. By refusing to support these critical educational reforms, the Iowa GOP is leaving our students vulnerable to the perils of a post-truth world.

The Iowa Department of Education digital citizenship standards do not prioritize digital media literacy as defined above. Instead, they focus on securing hardware with passwords, avoiding copyright and trademark issues, and managing online relationships, leaving media literacy unaddressed.

Waukee is the fifth-largest school district in the state. I researched its digital citizenship curriculum and discovered only a limited emphasis on digital citizenship, with no specific requirements for media literacy. Furthermore, there is no recognition of the substantial amount of disinformation available online.

The online landscape evolves rapidly, and what was considered an acceptable curriculum five or ten years ago requires a comprehensive overhaul today.

The current standards are outdated, as discussed in my previous article. Students must be informed about evolving trends, but the reactionary politics of the Iowa GOP worsen this situation. Currently, insufficient action is being taken to address these challenges.

In recent years, nearly all aspects of our lives have moved online, highlighting the necessity for the general public to enhance their understanding of media literacy. The only formal media literacy education in the state is provided by the University of Iowa's College of Education. There is a pressing need for greater awareness and knowledge of this concept among the entire population.

Here are several actionable ideas to consider, though many more could be explored. I encourage readers to share their thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

• Update the Iowa Department of Education standards to reflect instruction on media literacy. This sounds like an impossible task. But I believe in advocating for what is right, and demonstrate the benefits this could provide. We have to hold onto the hope that we have the possibility to change this in the future.

• Establish a public outreach campaign directed at all Iowa residents.

• Place special emphasis on older Iowans’ who are often targeted for scams.

It is imperative that Iowans demand more from their leaders, rejecting the Iowa GOP's politics of fear and ignorance. By prioritizing media literacy education, we can equip students and the public with the skills needed to navigate an increasingly complex information landscape, ensuring that truth, not manipulation, guides Iowa's future.

Media literacy is a crucial concept that all residents should grasp. Educated citizens enhance the attractiveness and competitiveness of our state, drawing in new employers, promoting economic growth, and helping to retain Iowa's brightest young adults.

The stakes are high: will Iowa lead the way in cultivating a new generation of critical thinkers, or will it succumb to the regressive policies of Governor Reynolds and her administration? The future of our democracy—and the promise of our state—hangs in the balance.

The Iowa GOP, under the leadership of Kim Reynolds has flipped traditional conservatism on its head. Gone are the traditional conservative principles of a small, hands-off government. The linked…

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