June 13, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Does your nonprofit organization have people going to bat for it in the hallways of your state house or in the corridors of Congress?
Barry Hessenius, a charity consultant and former executive director of the California Arts Council, thinks it could be a good idea.
Besides writing Barry’s Blog he also just finished writing a book: Hardball Lobbying for Nonprofits.
“I wrote this book as a ‘how to’ tutorial on lobbying but found myself including an argument as to why nonprofit leaders should embrace this function,” he writes on his blog. “For far too long, I think nonprofits have been the Oliver Twists in the political spectrum – holding their little bowls meekly in front of them, begging ‘Please, sir, can I have some more.’”
Mr. Hessenius says nonprofit organizations can compete with “deep-pocketed special interest groups” but acknowledges that it requires money to get access to the elected officials with the power to help charities get government money or push legislation nonprofit groups care about. That can mean making contributions to political campaigns.
“The greatest single mistake nonprofits have made politically is the erroneous assumption that if they only make a convincing case for their value, for their needs, that they will win the day,” he writes. There are just far too many “good causes” out there for this to be true, he adds.
The topic of nonprofit political involvement has been provoking intense debate lately. Read an opinion article in The Chronicle about this subject.
Do you think more charities should be more aggressive in their lobbying? Are there risks for nonprofit groups that opt to enter the political arena?
