Policy and Advocacy Resources for Grantmakers and Nonprofits

Resources
The Lobbying and Advocacy Handbook for Nonprofit Organizations
Power in Policy: A Funder's Guide to Advocacy and Civic Participation

Contents
Policy and Advocacy Resources
Leveraging Change at the Systems Level

 

From Vince Hyman, Publishing Director, Fieldstone Alliance:

We have recently offered several newsletters on policy issues and stakeholder analysis. These back issues can be found free online here.

This issue of Tools You Can Use is a list of policy and advocacy resources for nonprofit organizations and foundations. As with previous e-newsletters, we’ll keep it posted on our site.

We’ve included a number of organizations here, but no doubt there are many we’ve missed; please accept our apologies if we’ve overlooked yours. In a few months, an updated version of our web site should allow you to add comments to online issues of this newsletter, and you’ll be able to add other organizations via that new comments mechanism.

Here’s the list:

Policy and Advocacy Resources

Advocacy Center at ISC
www.advocacy.org
The Advocacy Center at ISC has a mission of helping ordinary people influence the key institutions and decisions that shape their lives—and a deep-seated belief that societies thrive only when their nonprofit sectors are strong and autonomous. The Center offers training to emerging leaders and established nonprofits around the world and in the United States.

Alliance for Justice, Foundation Advocacy Initiative
www.afj.org
The Alliance for Justice created the Foundation Advocacy Initiative to help increase grantmakers' support for nonprofit advocacy. Premised on the belief that nonprofits play a unique and necessary role in forming good public policy, the Foundation Advocacy Initiative seeks to inform grantmakers about their legal rights to provide resources and support for their grantees’ and their own public policy advocacy efforts. The Alliance for Justice conducts a coordinated program of workshops, technical assistance, and publications to provide private and public foundation leaders and staff with important legal information about the dos and don’ts related to lobbying and other legislative advocacy, election-related activities, grant agreements, building grantees advocacy capacity; and evaluating advocacy. Alliance for Justice has a number of publications, many of which are free.

Alliance for Nonprofit Management
www.allianceonline.org
Alliance for Nonprofit Management focuses on capacity building for nonprofit organizations, including advocacy. A helpful article by Liz Baumgarden can be found at  www.allianceonline.org/Members/Enhance/enhance_-_june_2004.enh/building_capacity_for.epage

Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest
www.clpi.org
Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest (CLPI) promotes, supports, and protects nonprofit advocacy and lobbying by all 501(c)(3) organizations. CLPI partners and provides coaching and assistance to foundation grantees and foundations to encourage and enable public policy advocacy including lobbying to occur inside the boundaries of the law. CLPI operates through a national network of advocacy and lobbying trainers and its comprehensive web site. It is the home of letters from the IRS explaining frequently asked questions about foundations, philanthropy, and public policy.

The Communications Network
www.comnetwork.org
An association of foundations that provides training and resources in public relations and strategic communications.

Council on Foundations
www.cof.org
As one of the largest associations of private and community foundations in the nation, the Council on Foundations (COF) advocates and lobbies Congress and the administration on issues affecting the health of philanthropy. COF offers a number of policy-related activities. Foundations on the Hill is an annual opportunity for foundation leaders to speak with members of Congress. COF Government Affairs staff provide legislative and policy information to foundations through their web site and via government relations staff. COF includes lessons and examples of foundations engaged in public policy and civic action as part of its workshops. Finally, COF’s many affinity groups, including associations of foundations by cause area (for example, Grantmakers in Health and Funders Concerned About Aids), get involved in public policy in their respective areas. One may connect with affinity groups through the COF web site.

Domini Social Investments
www.domini.com/shareholder-advocacy/index.htm
An investment firm specializing exclusively in socially responsible investing. Domini Social Investments manages funds for individual and institutional investors who wish to integrate social and environmental standards into their investment decisions.
The link,  www.domini.com/shareholder-advocacy/index.htm, takes you a web site section on shareholder activism.

Environmental Support Center
www.envsc.org
The Environmental Support Center (ESC) was founded in 1990 by grassroots environmental activists, state environmental policy advocates, environmental justice organizations, and environmental funders. ESC provides support to environmental groups that are working at the local, state, and regional levels.

Fieldstone Alliance, Inc.
www.fieldstonealliance.org
Fieldstone Alliance provides publications, consultation, training and research to strengthen the nonprofit sector. One of its focus areas through publication is the role of advocacy, lobbying, policy, civic participation and community building in improving the sector. Fieldstone Alliance offers a number of books in this areas as well as a series of free online tools relevant to policy development, stakeholder analysis, nonprofit trends, and allied issues.

Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers  
www.givingforum.org
The Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers is a national network of local leaders and organizations across the United States that support effective charitable giving. The Forum’s network encompasses thirty-one regional associations of grantmakers that collectively represent more than 4,000 grantmakers and others interested in philanthropy. The forum’s web site provides information and resources for grantmakers about public policy strategies, events and results.

Funder’s Committee for Civic Participation
Funders' Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP) works to encourage more attention and support of the broad issues of citizen engagement, both electorally and in society. For more information contact Geri Mannion at Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Grantcraft
www.grantcraft.org
See Grantcraft’s informative primer called Advocacy Funding: The Philanthropy of Changing Minds for information about the why and how of funding advocacy.

Grantmakers for Effective Organizations
www.geofunders.org
Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO)serves foundations interested in improving effectiveness and is a co-publisher with Fieldstone Alliance of Power in Policy.

Grantmakers in Health
www.gih.org
Grantmakers in Health (GIH) is an educational organization that works to help foundations and corporate giving programs improve the nation’s health. GIH is a leader in encouraging an appropriate and strong role for foundations in the public policy arena. Its web site provides tools for grantmakers that benefit all foundations, not just those in the health arena. GIH’s publication Funding Health Advocacy is a well-done brief booklet that covers some of the same topics as in this book.

Grassroots Solutions
www.grassrootssolutions.com
Grassroots Solutions is a consulting firm that specializes in grassroots advocacy, field consulting, training, and targeting. The organization provides clients with a resource that focuses exclusively on engaging, organizing, and mobilizing people.

Independent Sector
www.independentsector.org
Independent Sector is a forum for charities, foundations, and corporate giving programs committed to advancing the common good in America and around the world. Its nonpartisan coalition of approximately 575 organizations leads, strengthens, and mobilizes the charitable community in order to fulfill a vision of a just and inclusive society and a healthy democracy of active citizens, effective institutions, and vibrant communities. Independent Sector keeps track of federal policy issues that affect its constituents.

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
www.ncrp.org
Since 1976, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) has advocated for the philanthropic community to provide nonprofit organizations with essential resources and opportunities to work toward social and economic justice for disadvantaged and disenfranchised populations and communities. NCRP has encouraged infrastructure development and effective giving for public policy and advocacy, defending the advocacy and lobbying rights of nonprofits and foundations, and educating policymakers and the philanthropic community about key policy issues affecting the charitable sector.

National Council of Nonprofit Associations
www.ncna.org
The National Council of Nonprofit Associations (NCNA) is the network of state and regional nonprofit associations serving over 20,000 members in 41 states and the District of Columbia. NCNA links local organizations to a national audience through state associations and helps small and midsize nonprofits manage and lead more effectively; collaborate and exchange solutions; engage in critical policy issues affecting the sector; and achieve greater impact in their communities. NCNA is also the convening organization for the Nonprofit Congress, an effort to unite nonprofits and strengthen the charitable sector. NCNA publishes Nonprofit Policy News, a monthly e-newsletter dedicated to federal and state legislation affecting nonprofits. NCNA has an extensive set of policy-related links on its site.

National Network of Grantmakers
www.nng.org
The National Network of Grantmakers (NNG) is an organization of individuals involved in funding social and economic justice. The network values individuals, projects, and organizations working for systemic change in the United States and abroad in order to create an equitable distribution of wealth and power and mutual respect for all peoples. NNG works primarily within organized philanthropy to increase financial and other resources to groups committed to social and economic justice.

Nonprofit Good Practice Guide
www.npgoodpractice.org
A web-based center for learning about sound nonprofit and foundation practices sponsored by the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at Grand Valley State University. A section of the site is devoted to advocacy practices.

Northern California Grantmakers Association’s Public Policy Grantmaking Toolkit
www.ncg.org/toolkit/home.html
An online toolkit—a set of web pages—to help grantmakers understand how funding public policy initiatives can make an impact on a systemic level without imperiling a foundation's tax-exempt status. The primary goal of this toolkit is to demystify public policy grantmaking with an eye towards building the capacity of funders to engage in public policy initiatives. The site seeks to encourage and help grantmakers incorporate long-term change and policy-related work into their funding portfolio.

OMB Watch
www.ombwatch.org
OMB Watch exists to increase government transparency and accountability; to ensure sound, equitable regulatory and budgetary processes and policies; and to protect and promote active citizen participation in our democracy. Nonprofit advocacy is one of OMB Watch’s issue areas. OMB Watch hosts NPAction,  www.NPAction.org/, an all in one place to learn about public policy advocacy and how to use web-based tools for advocacy directed at government and media. OMB Watch also cohosts Strengthening Nonprofit Advocacy Project,  www.ombwatch.org/snap, which has research on the factors that influence nonprofit public policy participation from OMB Watch, Tufts University, and Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest.

The Philanthropic Initiative
www.tpi.org
The Philanthropic Initiative, Inc. (TPI) is a nonprofit organization offering individuals, foundations, institutions, and corporations a disciplined and results-oriented approach to philanthropy. Since it was founded in 1989, TPI has helped hundreds of donors to have an impact on some of society's most complex challenges through strategic philanthropy.

In addition, TPI encourages a positive climate for philanthropy and actively promotes giving though its work with community foundations, the Regional Associations of Grantmakers, and others.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Connect project
www.rwjf.org/publications/connect/about.jhtml?gsa=1
The Connect project is an effort by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Communications Office to help RWJF grantees build relationships with their members of Congress and other policymakers. RWJF grantees work at the local level to address some of the nation's most critical health care needs. Connect gives them an opportunity to share the challenges they face and the lessons they've learned with their representatives in government. A useful model for other funders and nonprofits to study.

The SPIN Project
www.spinproject.org
The SPIN Project provides accessible and affordable strategic communications consulting, training, coaching, networking opportunities, and concrete tools. The SPIN Project’s skills and expertise are blended with its commitment to strengthen social justice organizations and help them engage in communications to achieve their goals.

Urban Institute
www.urban.org/nonprofits
Shares research and discussion papers on the topic of advocacy prepared for the Urban Institute’s Center for Nonprofits and Philanthropy’s seminar on nonprofit advocacy. The papers investigate important questions about the basis for and nature of nonprofit advocacy in the U.S. political process.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Policy Toolkit
www.wkkf.org/default.aspx?tabid=75&CID=280&NID=61&LanguageID=0
A rich set of web pages published by the Kellogg Foundation to help nonprofits align public policies and strategies to improve life. Includes case studies, information on advocacy work, and much more.

Leveraging Change at the Systems Level
It’s hard for nonprofit executives to look up from the continuous demands to achieve our missions through direct service. It’s tough, too, for foundation program officers to divert resources from programs that meet unmet needs. These challenges can keep us all focused on solving immediate problems rather than looking around to address root causes.

But all of these issues that motivate the nonprofit community reside within the sum of systems that shape daily life. Local, state, and federal policies and regulations are integral to those systems—as are our own organizations. Foundations, nonprofits, associations, and the boards of directors who lead them can significantly improve conditions when they look beyond crisis demands and influence change at the systems level. That means re-weaving the fabric of policies, regulation, and enforcement that we’re wrapped in. This is why efforts in public policy, civic participation, lobbying, and advocacy are vital. As you’ve seen in previous newsletter issues on advocacy, there are many ways even the smallest of organizations can be involved in knitting a better community through sound public policy. The resources in this newsletter are a great starting point, and we are fortunate to have them.

Sincerely,

Vince Hyman
Publishing Director
Fieldstone Alliance

April 4 , 2007

 

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