Congresswoman Uses Her High Profile to Support Charities in Home District

Donna Edwards, the former nonprofit leader who now represents Maryland in the U.S. House of Representatives, borrows heavily on her nonprofit experience to help her navigate politics.

She is also attempting to use her Congressional clout to help nonprofits in her home district just outside of Washington—where she says some of the “nonprofit infrastructure is woeful”—learn how to be more effective and how to get grants.

For the past two years, she has organized annual “nonprofit forums,” inviting government, foundation, academic, corporate, and nonprofit experts to give advice on topics including proposal writing, succession planning, and nonprofit partnerships.

She and her staff members have also worked on specific projects to encourage nonprofits to collaborate—for example, bringing together groups in her district that work to help former prisoners re-enter society and advising a group of nine nonprofit organizations in Prince George’s County that set up a “one-stop-shop” in a shopping center to provide education, job training, drug counseling, and other services.

Sandy Washington, executive director of Community Outreach and Development, a charity that is managing the shopping-center project, says Ms. Edwards has met with all of the participants, provided information about applying for federal money, and maintains an “open-door policy of being able to reach folks in her office.”

Drawing on Experience

Ms. Edwards also keeps in touch with the group she co-founded, the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

She attends its annual “advocacy days” event—and has offered to help it navigate roadblocks as it seeks changes to the Violence Against Women Act, which is due to be extended this year, says Sue Else, the current president.

When Ms. Edwards gives advice to nonprofit groups, she often draws examples from her career. For example, she says, the Center for a New Democracy folded when she was executive director, at her recommendation, after it concluded it would remain a small, marginal player because its focus was too similar to that of other organizations.

The lesson she passes on: “Just because something is a good idea, it doesn’t mean it should be an organization.”

The congresswoman also recounts her decision to step down as the first executive director at the National Network to End Domestic Violence after planning a transition to a successor. “I had a certain set of skills that were really necessary at the founding that are not the same skills that will allow the organization to grow and develop in a different way,” she says.

Ms. Edwards offers workshops at her nonprofit forums to train charities how to advocate for their causes, something she says is vital because “it keeps us accountable.”

She says there may be room to update and clarify federal rules that restrict the amount of lobbying that charities can do—which some critics say are too strict and too confusing.

But “that is going to take some work,” she says.

“I’ve found, though, that a lot of nonprofits in my Congressional district don’t know the latitude they have under the current rules.”