October 26, 2006 | Read Time: 4 minutes
Almost 400 nonprofit leaders from across the country vowed at a meeting here last week to take action in their states to bolster their political clout and improve the image of charitable organizations.
“Our detractors perpetrate the myth that what we do is wasteful, that we are takers, not givers, to the economy,” said William J. Walczak, chief executive officer of Codman Square Health Center, in Dorchester, Mass. “The best of our detractors say that, although our missions are good for people, we are managerially filled with incompetence.”
The truth, he added, is that nonprofit groups make a significant contribution to state economies — one that is growing as manufacturing industries decline.
Mr. Walczak and other nonprofit officials attending the Nonprofit Congress National Meeting, the first of its kind, said charities must unite to fight damaging stereotypes and demand a seat at the political table.
The two-day meeting was the brainchild of Audrey R. Alvarado, executive director of the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, in Washington, a network of state and regional nonprofit associations, and Robert Egger, executive director of D.C. Central Kitchen, a hunger-relief charity.
‘Bottom-Up’ Approach
The meeting did not adopt a national strategy for starting a nonprofit-power movement. Instead, taking a “bottom-up” approach, the organizers asked delegates to agitate for change at the state level. Mr. Egger said charities need to transform their state nonprofit associations into organizations that can speak for them, instead of just about them, and influence members of Congress.
After meeting separately, each state delegation announced its own action plan. Several delegations said they planned to organize “town hall” meetings when they returned to report on the Washington session and plan next steps.
Several from states without nonprofit associations, including West Virginia and Wisconsin, said they would work to create such organizations. The New Hampshire delegation, whose state hosts an early presidential primary, plans to organize a forum in 2008 to get the candidates’ views on nonprofit issues. The Maine delegation will try to get every newspaper in the state to publish a weekly section about nonprofit organizations, similar to the business and religion news sections.
A Utah delegate, Pat Drewry Sanger, said after the meeting that she hopes charities in Utah will give more authority to the state nonprofit association to speak on their behalf, something it has been hesitant to do without a specific mandate.
“We haven’t really taken leadership, we haven’t really understood where we are and thought of ourselves as a unified voice,” said Ms. Sanger, founder of Arts-Kids, an after-school program in Park City.
Last week’s meeting was preceded by more than 100 gatherings of nonprofit leaders that were held across the country during the past year to help identify priorities that nonprofit groups can rally around. The delegates were selected to mirror as closely as possible the national distribution of charities by budget size and mission. More than half of them represented groups with budgets less than $1-million.
One of the delegates’ main jobs was to vote for three top priorities out of six themes that emerged from the town halls.
They chose “nonprofit organizational effectiveness,” “public awareness and support of the nonprofit sector,” and “advocacy and grass-roots community activities.”
Next Steps
Several speakers offered the delegates advice as they move forward.
Mark Lloyd, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, suggested that nonprofit groups push to create a federal agency to champion their interests — for example, something along the lines of the Small Business Administration.
But William Schambra, director of the Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal at the conservative Hudson Institute, in Washington, warned charities not to mimic the worst attributes of business or government in trying to bolster their status.
He said nonprofit groups are adopting business language — “investments,” “business plans,” “generating revenue” — at a time when Americans are fed up with “corporate snappy patter.”
Charities also are mistaken when they advocate restoring trust in government, one of their major sources of financial support, he said. “The nonprofit sector is identified with small, immediate community and compassion. Government is viewed as distant, alienating, and unresponsive.”
The Nonprofit Congress plans to organize another national meeting in spring 2008, with a view to influencing the Democratic and Republican national conventions. One delegate — Jonathan D. Schick, president of the Goal Project, a leadership-consulting firm in Dallas — said he’s worried about losing momentum by waiting that long. “My opinion is they should have those follow-ups a little bit sooner than 2008, to make sure these things get into play.”
Mr. Egger said he, the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, and state nonprofit leaders would be working to keep things moving. “I’ve already got a lot of invitations to speak at different state gatherings,” he said.
Information about the Nonprofit Congress is available online.
