Nonprofit Political Engagement: Barriers, Resources and Beliefs about Permissible Agency Activities

Background/Purpose:

Nonprofit organizations often provide services that are essential to underrepresented populations. Through this work, nonprofits have an intimate understanding of the needs of the populations they serve and strategies or policies that can have a positive impact on their clients. To ensure the well-being of these clients, it is essential that nonprofit organizations advocate and work to influence decision making bodies in their communities.

The limited research conducted to assess the level of advocacy in nonprofit organizations indicates a lack of advocacy due to external barriers, a lack of understanding of public policy, or fear of repercussions. This is particularly concerning when the relationship between direct service, advocacy and political decision making is considered.  A lack of advocacy from nonprofit agencies could hamper their ability to provide services to clients and their ability to ensure that the needs of their clients will be represented.

Research Question:

This study seeks to examine current understandings of permissible political engagement among leaders in nonprofit and public organizations.  Specifically, the study seeks to address the following research questions:

• What do representatives of nonprofit and public agencies understand about permissible political activities for agencies such as theirs?
• In what types of political activities do nonprofit and public agencies commonly engage?
• What concerns do representatives of nonprofit and public agencies have in regards to agency political engagement? 

Methods:

This study employed an online survey design.  Email invitations with a link to the survey were sent to over 300 agency representatives at nonprofit organizations within two western states.  Email addresses for these representatives were culled from the partner agencies of two regional foodbanks.  Seventy-four representatives completed the survey, which consisted of Likert-type questions about current political engagement activities as well as understandings and attitudes about said activities.  Data from the survey was uploaded into SPSS for analysis.

Results:

Very few of the nonprofit agencies contracted with a lobbyist or government relations specialist (8%).  However, more agencies (23%) did belong to advocacy groups or coalitions.  Although a majority of agency representatives believed that public policy did affect their organizations (70%), few of these representatives reported cultivating relationships between clients and policy makers (22%) or between board members and policy makers (40%).  Accurate understandings of permissible activities correlated with both the size of the agency and the type of services provided. 

Conclusion/Implications:

Nonprofit agencies are directly and significantly affected by public policy.  However, few nonprofits actively engage in efforts to influence such policy.  As a result, nonprofits will continue to experience shrinking resources and and may fail to help their clients realize their own political power.