Advocacy Pays
Advocacy is the act of ensuring that community voices are included in decisions. This type of civic participation strengthens the quality of corporate and government decisions. However, 59% of CEOs report that public policy/advocacy is only a small part or no part of their organization’s strategy.
Thankfully, through many of the remaining nonprofits contributing significant levels of advocacy, the sector secured a range of critical financial and programmatic support to sustain their organizations, missions, and communities in 2020. The list of support includes:
- Employee Retention Tax Credit, which provides employers, including nonprofits, with a tax credit against payroll taxes for retaining workers;
- Refundable payroll tax credits for paid sick and family leave;
- Partial reimbursement of unemployment payments for self-insured nonprofits;
- Enhanced unemployment insurance;
- Temporary increase in Medicaid funding;
- Economic impact payments to households, including mixed-status families, nonprofit employees, and constituents;
- Emergency funding for the child care sector and Head Start, which directly supports nonprofit child care providers and indirectly supports parents employed and served by nonprofits;
- Emergency funding for safe, healthy elections;
- Grants for clean, healthy transportation;
- Higher education emergency relief funding;
- Increased support through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and nutrition assistance in U.S. territories;
- Emergency food assistance through food banks;
- Additional support for utilities through Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP);
- Additional funding for programs serving children and families, runaway and homeless youth, child welfare, aging and disability communities, and survivors of domestic violence;
- Additional funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute of Museum and Library Services; and Smithsonian Institution;
- Funding for international disaster assistance; and
- Additional funding for community development block grants and Veterans Affairs Homelessness Assistance.
For the first time, nonprofits were included in emergency Small Business Administration (SBA) programs, with particular focus on the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Approximately 40% of eligible nonprofits received a PPP loan, but the success rate varied across states. Overall, 4.1 million nonprofit jobs were protected by 181,680 nonprofit PPP loans.
60% of social services, arts, and culture organizations reported obtaining PPP grants. This finding is consistent with other research that estimates 63% of eligible nonprofit jobs were protected by PPP loans.
The 181,680 loans made to nonprofits represented only 3.7% of all loans made under the program, but nonprofit organizations received a larger share of the high-dollar loans (over $150,000) than all other entity types.
Federal policy changes also raised great concerns for nonprofits in 2020. President Trump’s Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping threatened to cancel government contracts and grants to organizations (including nonprofits) dependent on compliance with diversity training goals regarding such concepts as systemic racism. Several nonprofits used judicial advocacy and filed lawsuits against the Trump Administration to block the implementation of the Executive Order. In January 2021, President Biden repealed this Executive Order and created a new one asserting a commitment to racial equity within the Administration.
The Health of the U.S. Nonprofit Sector report offered several suggestions to improve the performance of nonprofits in the arena of public policy and advocacy.
Improve Research on Nonprofit Advocacy: National, comprehensive research on nonprofit advocacy participation has not been conducted in over 20 years. Consequently, it is difficult to gauge whether many of the efforts of the last two decades to overcome barriers to advocacy have succeeded or whether new barriers may have emerged. To understand the extent to which nonprofits are engaging in advocacy, as well as drivers behind their engagement, the sector needs much more regular research on nonprofit advocacy.
Identify Relationship between Advocacy and Other Health Indicators: “In order for nonprofits to be a positive force for democracy, they need to align their mission, governance, resources, and relationship to the community in ways that support more advocacy and community engagement.” In other words, the sector would benefit from research to identify how other indicators of health correlate to an organization’s nonpartisan civic engagement and advocacy. It also would be beneficial to know the direction of those relationships. Do certain financial or governance structures increase the likelihood organizations advocate or does an organization starting nonpartisan voter engagement show increases in donations or grants?
Learn how to assure that your organization is a leader in civic engagement/advocacy in the Discovering Trends Through Civic Engagement class on Monday, October 24 at 5:30 pm as part of the Sunshine Certificate in Nonprofit Management.
Source: Independent Sector – Health of the U.S. Nonprofit Sector
Independent Sector brings together a diverse community of nonprofits, foundations, and corporate giving programs. Florida Nonprofits has been a member of Independent Sector since 1991 and they have been a trusted source for us and our members. They are a source for advocacy information and our advocacy program.