April 5, 2001 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The Legislative Labyrinth: A Map for Not-For-Profits
edited by Walter P. Pidgeon Jr.
Nonprofit organizations that do not seek to influence the legislative process are missing out on valuable opportunities to further their goals, writes Walter P. Pidgeon, chief executive officer of the Wildlife Legislative Fund of America and editor of this new book. Local, state, and federal legislation often makes a big difference in whether nonprofit groups can accomplish their missions.
Often those groups shy away from government-affairs work because of concerns that such activities could jeopardize their tax-exempt status. But their failure to influence government policy “could be harming their constituents,” Mr. Pidgeon writes.
In this volume, Mr. Pidgeon and seven other advocacy experts seek to remedy that situation by creating a guide to methods of lobbying legislative bodies. Part One explains the way nonprofit organizations can take advantage of lobbying rules, their historical role in the legislative process, the tools necessary to develop a legislative agenda, opportunities to use volunteers to serve as advocates, and examples of successful legislative operations. This section also contains an introduction to the legislative process.
Part Two, “Successful Methods Used by Not-for-Profits,” covers creating and using political-action committees, stimulating grass-roots activism, working with the news media, marketing political campaigns, forming coalitions, and hiring and working with lobbyists.
Part Three discusses the legal aspects of government affairs and lobbying. In this section, Bruce R. Hopkins, a Kansas City, Mo., lawyer, writes that many organizations believe the “boundaries as to allowable lobbying to be far more restrictive than they actually are.” He explains the legal parameters for nonprofit legislative activities and describes exceptions, methods of measuring allowable lobbying, the way to maintain records, and the rules of reporting.
The chapters in Part Four show how to assess an organization’s ability to conduct advocacy, how to strategically plan campaigns, and how to work with the news media and use other communications tools to advance an organization’s goals. The book includes a CD-ROM with illustrations from the text, strategic-planning materials, and examples from successful campaigns by nonprofit organizations.
Other contributors to the book are John Chwat, a Washington lobbyist; Robert K. Goodwin, president of the Points of Light Foundation; William P. Horn, a partner at Birch, Horton, Bittner and Cherot; Jack Kalavritinos, director of government affairs for the American Consulting Engineers Council; David L. Kushner, president of the American Osteopathic Healthcare Association; and Rick Story, a public-relations expert.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 1 Wiley Drive, Somerset, N.J. 08875; (800) 225-5945; fax (800) 597-3299; http://www.wiley.com; 240 pages; $39.95; I.S.B.N. 0-471-40069-6.
