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Some politicians employ harsh rhetoric demanding that government deny public services such as food, housing, and medical care to immigrants. While nonprofits assist immigrants in this regard, their work is sustainable only if private donors support them. Using a survey experiment, this article examines whether donors' willingness to support a charity depends on the legal status of its beneficiaries, and the region from which they have come. We find that, in relation to a charity that serves low‐income families (control group), donors are less willing to support a charity serving immigrants, but the region from which beneficiaries emigrated is irrelevant. Donor willingness diminishes substantially when beneficiaries are undocumented or face deportation. While shared ethnicity between donors and beneficiaries does not increase charitable support, bilingualism does. In addition, support for the charity rises substantially among Latinx donors who were born outside the US and do not speak English at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private philanthropic support for government agencies continues to expand into different areas of public services, especially at the local level where libraries, parks and recreation departments, and police departments have benefited. The resources generated by a dedicated government-supporting nonprofit can play a significant role in enhancing the work of government, not only through resources, but through community engagement. In this article, we focus on police foundations, registered 501(c)3 nonprofits that exist to support police departments. Using NCCS nonprofit data and data collected from organizational websites, we create a database of 243 police foundations that identifies their mission statements, websites and activities, and the characteristics of the communities in which they are found across the U.S. In doing so, we argue that, rather than government failure or inadequacy to meet the needs of communities, police foundations are the result of isomorphism among professionalized police departments seeking to enhance their work and connection to the community. While funding for additional equipment and training are the most common activities of police foundations, the similarity in programs serving the community gives some indication of the proliferation of best practices in public safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]