May 2, 2002 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Lobbying and Advocacy Handbook for Nonprofit Organizations
by Marcia Avner
This guide is designed to help nonprofit organizations craft well-designed lobbying efforts, whether their goal is to propose a new law, support or defeat proposed legislation, or mobilize grass-roots support.
“Nonprofit organizations can and should lobby,” writes Marcia Avner, public-policy director at the Minnesota Council for Nonprofits. “It isn’t difficult. It isn’t mysterious. It isn’t expensive. And it is a proper role for nonprofits.”
Mostly written for organizations that are rookies in public-policy advocacy, the book offers step-by-step instruction, worksheets, and anecdotal examples to illustrate ways to approach lobbying at the state and local levels. One chapter walks through the development of a lobbying plan, providing agendas for planning meetings and worksheets for recording decisions and brainstorming. Others give tips on how to propose new legislation, build relationships with government officials, and testify at committee hearings.
Recognizing that it’s often difficult to move from designing a plan to putting it into effect, Ms. Avner offers approaches that organizations can use to ease into action. Those include assigning roles and responsibilities; providing training to motivate board members, employees, and volunteers; and creating information and outreach systems to mobilize support and monitor activities.
Appendices include advice on lobbying in response to a crisis such as a threat to an organization’s finances, a list of resources for nonprofit lobbying, a guide to legislative processes, and sample campaign posters, proposal outlines, and letters to representatives.
Publisher: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, 919 Lafond Avenue, St. Paul, Minn. 55104-2108; (651) 659-6024 or (800) 274-6024; fax (651) 642-2061; books@wilder.org; http://www.wilder.org; 230 pages; $30; I.S.B.N. 0-940069-26-1.
